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CENTENARY EDITION 
VOLUME VII. 


EUGENIE GRANDET 
PIERRETTE 




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LA COMEDIE HUMAINE 

OF 

HONORE DE BALZAC 


TRANSLATED BY 

KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY 

EUGENIE GRANDET 
PIERRETTE 


JUustrateH bg 
E. DUEZ 

AND ^ 

J. A. MUENIER 


BOSTON 

LITTLE. BROWN. AND COMPANY 


TZ3 
• 152 . 2 . 
E 


n 


Copyright, 1886, 1892, 1896, 

By Roberts Brothers. 

Copyright, 1913, 

By Little, Brown, and Company. 
All rights reserved. 

'o 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


TO MARIA. 


May your name, that oi one whose portrait is the noblest 
ornament of this work, lie on its opening page like a 
branch of sacred box, taken from an unknown tree, 
but sanctified by religion, and kept ever fresh and 
green by pious hands to bless the house. 


D£ BALZAC 






















SCENES FROM PROVINCIAL LIFE. 


EUGfiNIE GRANDET. 

1 . 

There are houses iu certain provincial towns whose 
aspect inspires melancholy, akin to that called forth 
sombre cloisters, dreary moorlands, or the deso- 
lation of ruins. Within these houses there is, per- 
haps, the silence of the cloister, the barrenness of 
moors, the skeleton of ruins ; life and movement are 
so stagnant there that a stranger might think them 
uninhabited, were it not that he encounters suddenly 
the pale, cold glance of a motionless person, whose 
half-monastic face peers beyond the window-casing at 
the sound of an unaccustomed step. 

Such elements of sadness formed the physiognomy, as 
it were, of a dwelling-house in Saumur which stands at 
the end of the steep street leading to the chtoau in 
the upper part of the town. This street — now little 
frequented, hot in summer, cold in winter, dark in cer- 
tain sections — is remarkable for the resonance of ite 


2 


EugSnie Grandet, 


little pebbly pavement, always clean and dry, for the 
narrowness of its tortuous road- way, for the peaceful 
stillness of its houses, which belong to the Old town 
and are over-topped by the rampart^ Houses three 
centuries old are still solid, though built of wood, 
and their divers aspects add to the originality which 
commends this portion of Saumur to the attention 
of artists and antiquaries. 

It is difficult to pass these houses without admiring 
the enormous oaken beams, their ends carved into 
fantastic figures, which crown with a black bas-relief 
the lower fioor of most of them. In one place these 
transverse timbers are covered with slate and mark a 
bluish line along the frail wall of a dwelling covered by 
a roof en colomhage which bends beneath the weight of 
years, and whose rotting shingles are twisted by the 
alternate action of sun and rain. In another place 
blackened, worn-out window-siUs, with delicate sculp- 
tures now scarcelj’ discernible, seem too weak to bear the 
brown clay pots from which springs the heart’s-ease or 
the rose-bush of some poor working-woman. Farther 
on are doors studded with enormous nails, where the 
genius of our forefathers has traced domestic hieroglyph- 
ics, of which the meaning is now lost forever. Here a 
Protestant attested his belief; there a Leaguer cursed 
Henry IV. ; elsewhere some bourgeois has carved the 
insignia of his noblesse de cloches, symbols of his long' 


Eugenie GrandeU 3 

forgotten magisterial glory. The whole history of 
France is there. 

Next to a tottering house with roughly plastered 
walls, where an artisan enshrines his tools, rises the 
mansion of a country gentleman, on the stone arch 
of which above the door vestiges of armorial bearings 
may still be seen, battered by the many revolutions 
that have shaken France since 1789. In this hilly 
street the ground -floors of the merchants are neither 
shops nor warehouses ; lovers of the Middle Ages will 
here find the ouvrouere of our forefathers in all its 
naive simplicity. These low rooms, which have no 
shop-frontage, no show-windows, in fact no glass at 
all, are deep and dark and without interior or exte- 
rior decoration. Their doors open in two parts, each 
roughl}" iron-bound ; the upper half is fastened back 
within the room, the lower half, fitted with a spring- 
bell, swings continually to and fro. Air and light 
reach the damp den within, either through the upper 
half of the door, or through an open space between 
the ceiling and a low front wall, breast-high, which 
is closed by solid shutters that are taken down ever}^ 
morning, put up every evening, and held in place 
by heavy iron bars. 

This wall serves as a counter for the merchandise. No 
delusive display is there ; only samples of the business, 
whatever it may chance to be, — such, for instance, as 


4 


EugSnie Grandet, 


three or four tubs full of codfish and salt, a few bundles 
of sail-cloth, cordage, copper wire hanging from the 
joists above, iron hoops for casks ranged along the wall, 
or a few pieces of cloth upon the shelves, j^ter. A 
neat girl, glowing with youth, wearing a white kerchief, 
her arms red and bare, drops her knitting and calls her 
father or her mother, one of whom comes forward and 
sells 3'ou what you want, phlegmatically, civilly, or arro- 
gantly, according to his or her individual character, 
whether it be a matter of two sous’ or twenty thousand 
francs’ worth of merchandise. You ma3" see a cooper, 
for instance, sitting in his doorway and twirling his 
thumbs as he talks with a neighbor. To all appearance 
he owns nothing more than a few miserable boat-ribs 
and two or three bundles of laths ; but below in the port 
his teeming wood-j^ard supplies all the cooperage trade 
of Anj ou. \ He knows to a plank how many casks are 
needed if the vintage is good. A hot season makes him 
rich, a rainy season ruins him ; in a single morning 
puncheons worth eleven francs have been known to drop 
to six. In this country’, as in Touraine, atmospheric 
vicissitudes control commercial life. Wine-growers, 
proprietors, wood - merchants, coopers, inn -keepers, 
mariners, all keep watch of the sun. They tremble when 
they go to bed lest they should hear in the morning of 
a frost in the night; they dread rain, wind, drought, 
and want water, heat, and clouds to suit their fancy. 


Euginie GrandeL 


5 


A perpetual duel goes on between the heavens and 
their terrestrial interests. The barometer smooths, 
saddens, or makes merry their countenances, turn and 
turn about. From end to end of this street, formerly 
the Grand’rue de Saumur, the words : “ Here’s golden 
weather,” are passed from door to door ; or each man 
calls to his neighbor : “It rains louis,” knowing well what 
a sunbeam or the opportune rainfall is bringing him. 

On Saturdays after midday, in the fine season, not 
one sou’s worth of merchandise can be bought from 
these worthy traders. Each has his vineyard, his 
enclosure of fields, and all spend two days in the 
country. This being foreseen, and purchases, sales, and 
profits provided for, the merchants have ten or twelve 
hours to spend in parties of pleasure, in making obser- 
vations, in criticisms, and in continual spring. A 
housewife cannot buy a partridge without the neigh- 
bors asking the husband if it were cooked to a turn. 
A young girl never puts her head near a window that 
she is not seen by idling groups in the street. Con- 
sciences are held in the light ; and the houses, dark, 
silent, impenetrable as they seem, hide no mysteries. 
Life is almost wholly in the open air ; every household 
sits at its own threshold, breakfasts, dines, and quarrels 
there. No one can pass along the street without being 
examined ; in fact formerly’, when a stranger entered 
a provincial town he was bantered and made game of 


6 


EugSnie Grandet, 


from door to door. From this came many good stories, 
and the nickname copieux^ which was applied to the 
inhabitants of Angers, who excelled in such urban 
sarcasms. 

f'^he ancient mansions of the old town of Saumur 
are at the top of this hilly street, and were formerly 
occupied by the nobility of the neighborhood. The 
melanchol}^ dwelling where the events of the following 
history took place is one of these mansions, — venerable 
relics of a century in which men and things bore the 
characteristics of simplicity which French manners and 
customs are losing da}- by da3^ Follow the windings 
of the picturesque thoroughfare, whose irregularities 
awaken recollections that plunge the mind mechanically" 
into revery, and y’ou will see a somewhat dark recess, 
in the centre of which is hidden the door of the house 
of Monsieur Grandet. It is impossible to understand 
the force of this provincial expression — the house of 
Monsieur Grandet — without giving the biography of 
Monsieur Grandet himself. 

Monsieur Grandet enjoyed a reputation in Saumur 
whose causes and effects can never be fully understood 
by those who have not, at one time or another, lived 
in the provinces. In 1789 Monsieur Grandet — still 
called by certain persons le Pere Grandet, though the 
number of such old persons has perceptibly diminished 
— was a master-cooper, able to read, write, and cipher. 


EugSnie Grandet, 


7 


At the period when the French Republic offered for 
sale the church property in the arrondissement of Sau- 
mur, the cooper, then forty years of age, had just mar- 
ried the daughter of a rich wood-merchant. Supplied 
with the ready money of his own fortune and his wife’s 
dot^ in all about two thousand louis-d’or, Grandet went 
to the newly established “ district,” where, with the help 
of two hundred double louis given by his father-in-law 
to the surly republican who presided over the sales of 
the national domain, he obtained for a song, legally 
if not legitimately, one of the finest vineyards in the 
arrondissement, an old abbey, and several farms. The 
inhabitants of Saumur were so little revolutionary that 
they thought Pere Grandet a bold man, a republican, and 
a patriot with a mind open to all the new ideas ; though 
in point of fact it was open only to vineyards. He was 
appointed a member of the administration of Saumur, 
and his pacific influence made itself felt politically and 
commercially. Politically, he protected the ci-devant 
nobles, and prevented, to the extent of his power, the 
sale of the lands and property of the emigres; com- 
mercially, he furnished the Republican armies with two 
or three thousand puncheons of white wine, and took 
his pay in splendid fields belonging to a community of 
women whose lands had been reserved for the last lot. 

Under the Consulate Grandet became mayor, gov« 
emed wisely, and harvested still better pickings. 


8 


EugSnie Grandet, 


Under the Empire he was called Monsieur Grandet. 
Napoleon, however, did not like republicans, and su- 
perseded Monsieur Grandet (who was supposed to have 
worn the Phrygian cap) by a man of his own surround- 
ings, a future baron of the Empire. Monsieur Grandet 
quitted office without regret. He had constructed in 
the interests of the town certain fine roads which led to 
his own property ; his house and lands, very advan- 
tageousty assessed, paid moderate taxes ; and since the 
registration of his various estates, the vineyards, thanks 
to his constant care, had become the “head of the 
country,” — a local term used to denote those that pro- 
duced the finest quality of wine. He might have asked 
for the cross of the Legion of honor. 

This event occurred in 1806. Monsieur Grandet was 
then fifty-seven years of age, his wife thirty- six, and an 
only daughter, the fruit of their legitimate love, was 
ten years old. Monsieur Grandet, whom Providence 
no doubt desired to compensate for the loss of his 
municipal honors, inherited three fortunes in the course 
of this year, — that of Madame de la Gaudiniere, born 
de la Bertelliere, the mother of Madame Grandet ; that 
of old Monsieur de la Bertelliere, her grandfather ; and, 
lastly, that of Madame Gentillet, her grandmother on 
the mother’s side : three inheritances, whose amount 
was not known to any one. /The avarice of the de- 
ceased persons was so keen that for a long time they 


Eugenie Grandet. 


9 


had hoarded their money for the pleasure of secretly 
looking at it. Old Monsieur de la Bertelliere called an 
investment an extravagance, and thought he got better 
interest from the sight of his gold than from the profits 
of usury. The inhabitants of Saumur consequently 
estimated his savings according to “ the revenues of 
the sun’s wealth,” as they said. 

Monsieur Grandet thus obtained that modern title of 
nobilit}" which our mania for equality can never rub out. 
He became the most imposing personage in the arron- 
dissement. He worked a hundred acres of vineyard, 
which in fruitful years yielded seven or eight hundred 
hogsheads of wine. He owned thirteen farms, an old 
abbe}", whose windows and arches he had walled up for 
the sake of economy, — a measure which preserved them, 
— also a hundred and twenty-seven acres of meadow- 
land, where three thousand poplars, planted in 1793, 
grew and flourished ; and finally, the house in which 
he lived. Such was his visible estate ; as to his other 
propert}^, only two persons could give even a vague 
guess at its value: one was Monsieur Cruchot, a 
notary employed in the usurious investments of Mon- 
sieur Grandet ; the other was Monsieur des Grassins, 
the richest banker in Saumur, in whose profits Grandet 
had a certain covenanted and secret share. 

Although old Cruchot and Monsieur des Grassins 
were both gifted with the deep discretion which wealth 


10 


Euginie Grandet. 

and trust beget in the provinces, they publicly testified 
so much respect to Monsieur Grandet that observers 
estimated the amount of his property by the obsequi- 
ous attention which they bestowed upon him. In all 
Saumur there was no one not persuaded that Monsieur 
Grandet had a private treasure, some hiding-place full 
of louis, where he nightly took ineffable delight in 
gazing upon great masses of gold. Avaricious people 
gathered proof of this when they looked at the eyes of 
the good man, to which the j^ellow metal seemed to 
have convened its tints. The glance of a man ac- 
customed to draw enormous interest from his capital 
acquires, like that of the libertine, the gambler, or the 
S3"cophant, certain indefinable habits, — furtive, eager, 
m3’sterious movements, which never escape the notice 
of his co-religionists. This secret language is in a cer- 
tain waj" the freemasonry of the passions. Monsieur 
Grandet inspired the respectful esteem due to one who 
owed no man anj’thing, who, skilful cooper and expe- 
rienced wine-grower that he was, guessed with the 
precision of an astronomer whether he ought to manu- 
facture a thousand puncheons for his vintage or only 
five hundred, who never failed in an}" speculation, and 
always had casks for sale when casks were worth more 
than the commodity that filled them, who could store 
his whole vintage in his cellars and bide his time to 
put the puncheons on the market at two hundred 


Eugenie G-randet. 


11 


francs, when the little proprietors had been forced to 
sell theirs for five loiiis. His famous vintage of 1811, 
judiciousl}- stored and slowly disposed of, brought 
him in more than two hundred and forty thousand 
francs. 

If Financially speaking. Monsieur Grandet wa^s some- 

* thing between a tiger and a boa-constrictor. He could 
crouch and lie low, watch his prey a long while, spring 
upon it, open his jaws, swallow a mass of louis, and 
then rest tranquilly like a snake in process of digestion, 
impassible, methodical, and cold. No one saw him pass 
without a feeling of admiration mingled with respect 
and fear ; had not every man in Saumur felt the rending 
of those polished steel claws? For this one, Maitre 
Cruchot had procured the money required for the pur- 
chase of a domain, but at eleven per cent. For that 
one. Monsieur des Grassins discounted bills of ex- 
change, but at a frightful deduction of interest. Few 
days ever passed that Monsieur Grandet’s name was 
not mentioned either in the markets or in social conver- 
sations at the evening gatherings. To some the fortune 
of the old wine-grower was an object of patriotic pride. 
More than one merchant, more than one innkeeper, 
said to strangers with a certain complaceilc}^ : “Mon- 
sieur, we have two or three millionnaire establishments ; 
but as for Monsieur Grandet, he does not himself know 
how much he is worth.’* 




12 EugSnie Grandet. 

In 1816 the best reckoners in Saumur estimated the 
landed property of the worthy man at nearly four mil- 
lions ; but as, on an average, he had made yearly, from 
1793 to 1817, a hundred thousand francs out of that 
property, it was fair to presume that he possessed in 
actual money a sum nearly equal to the value of his 
estate. So that when, after a game at boston or an 
evening discussion on the matter of vines, the talk fell 
upon Monsieur Grandet, knowing people said : “ Le 
Pere Grandet ? le Pere Grandet must have at least 
five or six millions.” 

“You are cleverer than I am ; I have never been 
able to find out the amount,” answered Monsieur Cru- 
chot or Monsieur des Grassins, when either chanced 
to overhear the remark. 

If some Parisian mentioned Rothschild or Monsieur 
Lafitte, the people of Saumur asked if he were as 
rich as Monsieur Grandet. When the Parisian, with a 
smile, tossed them a disdainful affirmative, they looked 
at each other and shook their heads with an incredulous 
air. So large a fortune covered with a golden mantle 
all the actions of this man. If in early days some 
peculiarities of his life gave occasion for laughter or 
ridicule, laughter and ridicule had long died away. His 
least important actions had the authority of results re- 
peatedly shown. His speech, his clothing, his gestures, 
the blinking of his eyes, were law to the country-side, 


EugSnie Grrandet, 


13 


where every one, after studying him as a naturalist 
studies the result of instinct in the lower animals, 
had come to understand the deep mute yrisdom of his 
slightest actions. 

“It will be a hard winter,” said one ; “ P^re Grandet 
has put on his fur gloves.” 

“ Pere Grandet is buying quantities of staves ; there 
will be plenty of wine to year.” 

r Monsieur Grandet never bought either bread or meat. 
His farmers supplied him weekly with a sufficiency of 
capons, chickens, eggs, butter, and his tithe of wheat. 
He owned a mill ; and the tenant was bound, over and 
above his rent, to take a certain quantity of grain and 
return him the flour and bran. La Grande Nanon, his 
only servant, though she was no longer young, baked 
the bread of the household herself every Saturday. 
Monsieur Grandet arranged with kitchen-gardeners who 
were his tenants to supply him with vegetables. As 
to fruits, he gathered such quantities that he sold the 
greater part in the market. His fire-wood was cut from 
his own hedgerows or taken from the half-rotten old 
sheds which he built at the corners of his fields, and 
whose planks the farmers carted into town for him, all 
cut up, and obligingly stacked in his wood-house, re- 
ceiving in return his thanks. His only known expendi- 
tures were for the consecrated bread, the clothing of 
his wife and daughter, the hire of their chairs in church, 


14 


EugSnie Grandet, 


the wages of la Grande Nanon, the tinning of the 
saucepans, lights, taxes, repairs on his buildings, and 
the costs of his various industries. He had six hun- 
dred acres of woodland, lately purchased, which he 
induced a neighbor’s keeper to watch, under the prom- 
ise of an indemnity. After the acquisition of this 
property he ate game for the first time. 

Monsieur Grandet’s manners were very simple. He 
spoke little. He usually expressed his meaning by 
short sententious phrases uttered in a soft voice. After 
the Revolution, the epoch at which he first came into 
notice, the good man stuttered in a wearisome waj^ as 
soon as he was required to speak at length or to main- 
tain an argument. This stammering, the incoherence 
of his language, the flux of words in which he drowned 
his thought, his apparent lack of logic, attributed to 
defects of education, were in reality assumed, and will 
be sufficiently explained by certain events in the fol- 
lowing history. Four sentences, precise as algebraic 
formulas, sufficed him usually to grasp and solve all 
difficulties of life and commerce ; don’t know ; 
I cannot ; I will not ; I will see about it.”j He never 
said yes, or no, and never committed himself to 
writing. If people talked to him he listened coldl}^ 
holding his chin in his right hand and resting his right 
elbow on the back of his left hand, forming in his own 
mind opinions on all matters, from which he never 


Eugenie Grandet. 


15 


receded. He reflected long before making any business 
agreement. When his opponent, after careful conver- 
sation, avowed the secret of his own purposes, confi- 
dent that he had secured his listener’s assent, Grandet 
answered: can decide nothing without consulting 

my wife.” His wife, whom he had reduced to a state 
of helpless slavery, was a useful screen to him in busi- 
ness. He went nowhere among friends ; he neither 
gave nor accepted dinners ; he made no stir or noise, 
seeming to economize in everything, even movement. 
He never disturbed or disarranged the things of other 
people, out of respect for the rights of property. Never- 
theless, in spite of his soft voice, in spite of his cir- 
cumspect bearing, the language and habits of a coarse 
nature came to the surface, especially in his own home, 
where he controlled himself less than elsewhere. 

I Physically, Grandet was a man five feet high, thick- 
set, square-built, with calves twelve inches in circum- 
ference, knotted knee-joints, and broad shoulders ; his 
face was round, tanned, and pitted by the small-pox ; 
his chin was straight, his lips had no curves, his teeth 
were white ; ^his eyes had that calm, devouring expres- 
sion which people attribute to the basilisk ; his fore- 
head, full of transverse wrinkles, was not without 
certain significant protuberances ; his 3’ellow-grayish 
hair was said to be silver and gold by certain 3’oung 
people who did not realize the impropriety of making 


16 


EugSnie Grrandet, 


a jest about Monsieur Grandet. His nose, thick at 
the end, bore a veined wen, which the common people 
said, not without reason, was full of malice. The 
whole countenance showed a dangerous cunning, an 
integrity without warmth, the egotism of a man long 
used to concentrate every feeling upon the enjoyments 
of avarice and upon the only human being who was 
an^’thing whatever to him, — his daughter and sole 
heiress, Eugenie. Attitude, manners, bearing, every- 
thing about him, in short, testified to that belief in 
himself which the habit of succeeding in all enterprises 
never fails to give to a man. 

■^Thus, though his manners were unctuous and soft 
outwardly. Monsieur Grandet’s nature was of iron. 
His dress never varied ; and those who saw him to-da}" 
saw him such as he had been since 1791. His stout 
shoes were tied with leathern thongs ; he wore, in all 
weathers, thick woollen stockings, short breeches of 
coarse maroon cloth with silver buckles, a velvet waist- 
coat, in alternate stripes of yellow and puce, buttoned 
squarel}’, a large maroon coat with wide fiaps, a black 
cravat, and a Quaker’s hat. His gloves, thick as 
those of a gendarme, lasted him twenty months ; to 
preserve them, he always laid them methodically on 



the brim of his hat in one particular 


knew nothing further about this personage./ 

Only six individuals had a right of entrance to 


Eugenie Grandet, 


17 


Monsieur Grandet’s house. The most important of 
the first three was a nephew of Monsieur Cruchot. 
Since his appointment as president of the Civil courts 
of Saumur this young man had added the name of 
Bonfons to that of Cruchot. He now signed himself 
C. de Bonfons. An^^ litigant so ill-advised as to call 
him Monsieur Cruchot would soon be made to feel his 
folly in court. The magistrate protected those who 
called him Monsieur le president, but he favored with 
gracious smiles those who addressed him as Monsieur 
de Bonfons. Monsieur le president was thirty-three 
years old, and possessed the estate of Bonfons (Boni 
Fontis), worth seven thousand francs a year; he ex- 
pected to inherit the property of his uncle the notary 
and that of another uncle, the Abbe Cruchot, a dig- 
nitary of the chapter of Saint-Martin de Tours, both 
of whom were thought to be very rich. These three 
Cruchots, backed by a goodly number of cousins, and . 
allied to twenty families in the town, formed a party, 
like the Medici in Florence ; like the Medici, the 
Cruchots had their Pazzi. 

Madame des Grassins, member of a son twenty-three 
years of age, came assiduously to play cards with 
Madame Grandet, hoping to marry her dear Adolphe 
to Mademoiselle Eugenie. Monsieur des Grassins, the 
banker, vigorously promoted the schemes of his wife by 
means of secret services constantly rendered to the 


18 


EugSnie QrandeU 


old miser, and always arrived in time upon the field 
of battle. The three des Grassins likewise had their 
adherents, their cousins, their faithful allies. On the 
Cruchot side the abbe, the Talleyrand of the family, 
well backed-up by his brother the notary, sharply con- 
tested every inch of ground with his female adversary, 
and tried to obtain the rich heiress for his nephew the 
president. 

This secret warfare between the Cruchots and the des 
Grassins, the prize thereof being the hand in marriage 
of Eugenie Grandet, kept the various social circles of 
^aumur in violent agitation. I Would Mademoiselle 
Grandet marry Monsietif le ^ president or Monsieur 
Adolphe des Grassins ? To this problem some replied 
that Monsieur Grandet would never give his daughter to 
the one or to the other. The old cooper, eaten up with 
ambition, was looking, they said, for a peer of France, 
to whom an income of three hundred thousand francs 
would make all the past, present, and future casks of 
the Grandets acceptable. Others replied that Mon- 
sieur and Madame des Grassins were nobles, and 
exceedingly rich ; that Adolphe was a personable young 
fellow ; and that unless the old man had a nephew of 
the pope at his beck and call, such a suitable alliance 
ought to satisfy a man who came from nothing, — a 
man whom Saumur remembered with an adze in his 
hand, and who had, moreover, worn the bonnet rouge. 


EugSnie Grandet. 19 

Certain wise heads called attention to the fact that 
Monsieur Cruchot de Bonfons had the right of entry 
to the house at all times, whereas his rival was received 
only on Sundays. Others, however, maintained that 
Madame des Grassins was more intimate with the 
women of the house of Grandet than the Cruchots were, 
and could put into their minds certain ideas which 
would lead, sooner or later, to success. To this the 
former retorted that the Abbe Cruchot was the most 
insinuating man in the world : pit a woman against 
a monk, and the struggle was even. “It is diamond 
cut diamond,” said a Saumur wit. 

The oldest inhabitants, wiser than their fellows, 
declared that the Grandets knew better than to let the 
property go out of the family, and that Mademoiselle 
Eugenie Grandet of Saumur would be married to the 
son of Monsieur Grandet of Paris, a wealthy wholesale 
wine-merchant. To this the Cruchotines and the Gras- 
sinists replied: “In the first place, the two brothers 
have seen each other only twice in thirty years ; and 
next. Monsieur Grandet of Paris has ambitious designs 
for his son. He is mayor of an arrondissement, a 
deputy, colonel of the National Guard, judge in the 
commercial courts ; he disowns the Grandets of Saumur, 
and means to ally himself with some ducal family, — 
du;Dal under favor of Napoleom^ In short, was there 
^.--anything not said of an heiress who was talked of 


20 


EugSnie GrandeU 


through a circumference of fifty miles, and even in the 
public conveyances from Angers to Blois, inclusively ! 

{ 3^ the beginning of 1811, the Cruchotines won a sig- 
nal advantage over the Grassinists. The estate of Froid- 
fond, remarkable for its park, its mansion, its farms, 
streams, ponds, forests, and worth about three millions, 
was put up for sale by the 3 'oung Marquis de Froidfond, 
who was obliged to liquidate his possessions. Maitre 
Cruchot, the president, and the abbe, aided by their 
adherents, were able to prevent the sale of the estate 
in little lots. The notary concluded a bargain with 
the young man for the whole property’, payable in gold, 
persuading him that suits without number would have 
to be brought against the purchasers of small lots 
before he could get the money for them ; it was better, 
therefore, to sell the whole to Monsieur Grandet, who 
was solvent and able to pajr for the estate in read}' 
money. The fine marquisate of Froidfond was accord- 
ingl}' conve^'ed down the gullet of Monsieur Grandet, 
who, to the great astonishment of Saumur, paid for it, 
under proper discount, with the usual formalities. 

T^is affair echoed from Nantes to Orleans. / Monsieur 
Grandet took advantage of a cart returning b}' wa}’ 
of Froidfond to go and see his chteau. Having cast 
a master^s eye over the whole property, he returned 
to Saumur, satisfied that he had invested his money 
at five per cent, and seized by the stupendous thought 


EugSnie Grandet. 


21 


of extending and increasing the marquisate of Froid- 
fond by concentrating all his property there. Then, 
to fill up his coffers, now nearly empty, he resolved to 
thin out his woods and his forests, and to sell off the 
poplars in the meadows. 


22 


Euginie Grandet, 



II 


It is now easy to understand the full meaning of 
the term, “ the house of Monsieur Grandet,” — 
that cold, silent, pallid dwelling, standing above the 
\ to^n and sheltered by the ruins of the ramparts. 

^ T^e two pillars and the arch, which made the porte- 

cochere on which the door opened, were built, like the 
house itself, of tufa, — a white stone peculiar to the 
shores of the Loire, and so soft that it lasts hardly 
more than two centuries. Numberless irregular holes, 
capriciously bored or eaten out hj the inclemency of 
the weather, gave an appearance of the vermiculated 
stonework of French architecture to the arch and the 
side walls of this entrance, which bore some resem- 
blance to the gatewaj^ of a jail. Above the arch was 
a long bas-relief, in hard stone, representing the four 
seasons, the faces already crumbling away and black- 
ened. This bas-relief was surmounted by a projecting 
plinth, upon which a variety of chance growths had 
sprung up, — yellow pellitory, bindweed, convolvuli, 
nettles, plantain, and even a little cherry-tree, already’ 
grown to some height. 


EugSnie G-randet, 


23 


The door of the archway was made of solid oak, 
brown, shrunken, and split in many places ; though 
frail in appearance, it was firmly held in place a 
system of iron bolts arranged in s^'mmetrical patterns. 
A small square grating, with close bars red with rust, 
filled up the middle panel and made, as it were, a 
motive for the knocker, fastened to it by a ring, which 
struck upon the grinning head of a huge nail. This 
knocker, of the oblong shape and kind which our an- 
cestors called jaquemart^ looked like a huge note of 
exclamation ; an antiquary who examined it attentively 
might have found indications of the figure, essentially 
burlesque, which it once represented, and which long 
usage had now effaced . Through this little grating — 
intended in olden times for the recognition of friends 
in times of civil war — inquisitive persons could per- 
ceive, at the farther end of the dark and slimy vault, 
a few broken steps which led to a garden, picturesquely 
shut in by walls that were thick and damp, and through 
which oozed a moisture that nourished tufts of sickly 
herbage. These walls were the ruins of the ramparts, 
under which ranged the gardens of several neighboring 
houses. 

The most important room on the ground-floor of the 
house was a large hall, entered directly from beneath 
the vault of the porte-cochere. Few people know the 
importance of a hall in the little towns of Anjou, Tom 


24 


EugSnie Grandet, 


I '1 


raine, and Berry. The hall is at one and the same time 
antechamber, salon, office, boudoir, and dining-room ; 
it is the theatre of domestic life, the common living- 
room. There the barber of the neighborhood came, 
twice a year, to cut Monsieur Grandet’s hair; there 
the farmers, the cure, th e ip der-prefect, and the miller’s 
boy came on business.! This room, with two windows 
looking on the street, was entirely of wood. Gray panels 
with ancient mouldings covered the walls from top to 
bottom ; the ceiling showed all its beams, which were 
likewise painted gray, while the space between them 
had been washed over in white, now yellow with age. 
An old brass clock, inlaid with arabesques, adorned the 
mantel of the ill-cut white stone chimnej-piece, above 
which was a greenish mirror, whose edges, bevelled to 
show the thickness of the glass, reflected a thread of 
light the whole length of a gothic frame in damascened 
steel- work. The two copper-gilt candelabra which dec- 
orated the corners of the chimney-piece served a double 
purpose : b}^ taking off the side-branches, each of which 


held a socket, the main stem — which was fastened to a 
pedestal of bluish marble tipped with copper — made a 
candlestick for one candle, which was sufficient for or- 
dinary occasions. The chairs, antique in shape, were 
covered with tapestry representing the fables of La 
Fontaine ; it was necessary, however, to know that 
writer well to guess at the subjects, for the faded colors 


/ 


EugSnie Grandet. 25 

and the figures, blurred by much darning, were difficult 
to distinguish. 

At the four corners of the hall were closets, or rather 
buffets, surmounted by dirty shelves. An old card- 
table in marquetry, of which the upper part was a 
chess-board, stood in the space between the two win- 
dows. Above this table was an oval barometer with a 
black border enlivened with gilt bands, on which the 
flies had so licentiously disported themselves that the 
gilding had become problematical. On the panel oppo- 
site to the chimney-piece were two portraits in pastel, 
supposed to represent the grandfather of Madame Gran- 
det, old Monsieur de la Bertelliere, as a lieutenant in 
the French guard, and the deceased Madame Gentillet 
in the guise of a shepherdess. The windows were 
draped with curtains of red gros de Tours held back by 
silken cords with ecclesiastical tassels. This luxurious 
decoration, little in keeping with the habits of Monsieur 
Grandet, had been, together with the steel pier-glass, 
the tapestries, and the buffets, which were of rose-wood, 
included in the purchase of the house. 

By the window nearest to the door stood a straw chair, 
whose legs were raised on castors to lift its occupant, 
Madame Grandet, to a height from which she could see 
the passers-by. A work-table of stained cherry-wood 
filled up the embrasure, and the little armchair of 
Eugenie Grandet stood beside it./ In this spot the lives 


26 


EugSnie Girandet, 


of mother and daughter had flowed peacefully onward 
for flfteen years, in a round of constant work from the 
month of April to the month of November. On the 
first day of the latter month they took their winter 
station by the chimney. Not until that day did Gran- 
det permit a fire to be lighted ; and on the thirty-first 
of March it was extinguished, without regard either to 
the chills of the early spring or to those of a wintry 
autumn. A foot- warmer, filled with embers from the 
kitchen fire, which la Grande Nanon contrived to save 
for them, enabled Madame and Mademoiselle Grandet 
to bear the chilly mornings and evenings of April and 
October. Mother and daughter took charge of the 
family linen, and spent their days so conscientiously 
upon a labor properly that of working- women, that if 
Eugenie wished to embroider a collar for her mother 
she was forced to take the time from sleep, and deceive 
her father to obtain the necessary light. For a long 
time the miser had given out the tallow candle to his 
daughter and la Grande Nanon just as he gave out 
every morning the bread and other necessaries for the 
daily consumption. 

La Grande Nanon was perhaps the only human being 
capable of accepting willingly the despotism of her 
master. The whole town envied ^onsieur and Madame 
Grandet the possession of her. / La Grande Nanon, so 
called on account of her height, which was five feet 


EugSnie Grandet, 


27 


eight inches, had lived with Monsieur Grandet for 
thirty-five years. Though she received only sixty 
francs a year in wages, she was supposed to be one 
of the richest serving-women in Saumur. Those sixty 
francs, accumulating through thirty-five years, had re« 
cently enabled her to invest four thousand francs in an 
annuity with Maitre Cruchot. This result of her long 
and persistent economy seemed gigantic. Every ser- 
vant in the town, seeing that the poor sexagenarian was 
sure of bread for her old age, was jealous of her, and 
never thought of the hard slavery through which it had 
been won. 

P t twenty-two years of age the poor girl had been 
Die to find a situation, so repulsive was her face 
to almost every one. i Yet the feeling was certainly 
unjust : the face would have been much admired on the 
shoulders of a grenadier of the guard ; but all things, 
so they say, should be in keeping. Forced to leave a 
farm where she kept the cows, because the dwelling- 
house was burned down, she came to Saumur to find 
a place, full of the robust courage that shrinks from no 
labor. / Le Pere Grandet was at that time thinking of 
marriage and about to set up his household. He espied 
the girl, rejected as she was from door to door. A 
good judge of corporeal strength in his trade as a 
cooper, he guessed the work that might be got out of a 
female creature shaped like a Hercules, as firm on her 


28 


EugSnie Qrandet, 


feet as an oak sixty years old on its roots, strong in the 
hips, square in the back, with the hands of a cartman 
and an honesty as sound as her unblemished virtue^ 
Neither the warts which adorned her martial visage, 
nor the red-brick tints of her skin, nor the sinewy arms, 
nor the ragged garments of la Grande Nanon, dismayed 
the cooper, who w as at t hat time still of an age when 
the heart shudders .||^He^ fed, shod, and clothed the poor 
girl, gave her wages,, and put her to work without treat- 
ing her too roughly. Seeing herself thus welcomed, la 
Grande Nanon secretly wept tears of joy, and attached 
herself in all sincerity to her master, who from that day 
ruled her and worked her with feudal authority. Nanon 
did everything. She cooked, she made the lye, she 
washed the linen in the Loire and brought it home on 
her shoulders ; she got up early, she went to bed late ; 
she prepared the food of the vine-dressers during the 
harvest, kept watch upon the market-people, protected 
the property of her master like a faithful dog, and 

even, full of blind confidence, obeyed without a murmur 
\ 

his most absurd exactions. \ 

In the famous 3^ear'(5f 1811, when the grapes were 
gathered with unheard-of difficulty, Grandet resolved 
to give Nanon his old watch, — the first present he had 
made her during twenty years of service. Though he 
turned over to her his old shoes (which fitted her), it is 
impossible to consider that quarterly benefit as a gift, 


EugSnie Grandet, 


29 


for the shoes were always thoroughly worn-out. Neces- 
sity had made the poor girl so niggardly that Grandet 
had grown to love her as we love a dog, and Nanon 
had let him fasten a spiked collar round her throat, 
whose spikes no longer pricked her. If Grandet cut 
the bread with rather too much parsimony, she made 
no complaint ; she gayly shared the hygienic benefits 
derived from the severe regime of the household, in 
which no one was ever ill. Nanon was, in fact, one of 
the family ; she laughed when Grandet laughed, felt 
gloomy or chilly, warmed herself, and toiled as he 
did. What pleasant compensations there were in such 
equality ! Never did the master have occasion to find 
fault with the servant for pilfering the grapes, nor 
for the plums and nectarines eaten under the trees. 
“ Come, fall- to, Nanon ! ” he would say in years when 
the branches bent under the fruit and the farmers 
were obliged to give it to the pigs. 

To the poor peasant who in her youth had earned 
nothing but harsh treatment, to the pauper girl picked 
up by charity, Grandet’s ambiguous laugh was like a 
sunbeam. Moreover, Nanon’s simple heart and narrow 
head could hold only one feeling and one idea. For 
thirty-five years she had never ceased to see herself 
standing before the wood-yard of Monsieur Grandet, 
ragged and barefooted, and to hear him say: “What 
do you want, young one?” Her gratitude was ever 


30 


EugSnie Grandet. 


new. Sometimes Grandet, reflecting that the poor 
creature had never heard a flattering word, that she 
was ignorant of all the tender sentiments inspired by 
women, that she might some day appear before the 
throne of God even more chaste than the Virgin Mary 
herself, — Grandet, struck with pity, would say as he 
looked at her, “ Poor Nanon ! ” The exclamation was 
alwaj^s followed by an undeflnable look cast upon him 
in return by the old servant. The words, uttered from 
time to time, formed a chain of friendship that nothing 
ever parted, and to which each exclamation added a link. 
Such compassion arising in the heart of the miser, and 
accepted gratefully by the old spinster, had something 
inconceivably horrible about it. This cruel pity, re- 
calling, as it did, a thousand pleasures to the heart of 
the old cooper, was for Nanon the sum total of happi- 
ness. Who does not likewise say, “Poor Nanon!” 
God will recognize his angels by the inflexions of their 
voices and by their secret sighs. 

There were very many households in Saumur where 
the servants were better treated, but where the masters 
received far less satisfaction in return. Thus it was 
often said: “What have the Grandets ever done to 
make their Grande Nanon so attached to them? She 
would go through fire and water for their sake ! ” Her 
kitchen, whose barred windows looked into the court, 
was always clean, neat, cold, — a true misePs kitchen, 


Euginie Grandet. 


31 


where nothing went to waste. When Nanon had 
washed her dishes, locked up the remains of the din- 
ner, and put out her fire, she left the kitchen, which 
was separated by a passage from the living-room, and 
went to spin hemp beside her masters. One tallow 
candle sufficed the family for the evening. The servant 
slept at the end of the passage in a species of closet 
lighted only by a fan-light. Her robust health enabled 
her to live in this hole with impunity ; there she could 
hear the slightest noise through the deep silence which 
reigned night and day in that dreary house. Like a 
watch-dog, she slept with one ear open, and took her 
rest with a mind alert. 

A description of the other parts of the dwelling will 
be found connected with the events of this history, 
though the foregoing sketch of the hall, where the 
whole luxury of the household appears, may enable 
the reader to surmise the nakedness of the upper 
fioors. 

f In 1819, at the beginning of an evening in the mid- 
dle of November, la Grande Nanon lighted the fire 
for the first time. The autumn had been very fine. 
This particular day was a fete-day well known to the 
Cruchotines and the Grassinists. The six antagonists, 
armed at all points, were making ready to meet at 
the Grandets and surpass each other in testimonials 
of friendship. That morning all Saumur had seen 


82 


Mugenie Grandet. 


Madame and Mademoiselle Grandet, accompanied by 
Nanon, on their way to hear Mass at the parish 
church, and every one remembered that the day was 
the anniversary of Mademoiselle Eugenie’s birth. 
Calculating the hour at which the family dinner would 
be over, Maitre Cruchot, the Abb4 Cruchot, and Mon- 
sieur C. de Bonfons hastened to arrive before the 
des Grassins, and be the first to pa}’^ their compliments 
to Mademoiselle Eugenie. All three brought enormous 
bouquets, gathered in their little green-houses. The 
stalks of the fiowers which the president intended to 
present were ingeniously wound round with a white 
satin ribbon adorned with gold fringe. In the morn- 
ing Monsieur Grandet, following his usual custom on 
the da3"s that commemorated the birth and the fete of 
Eugenie, went to her bedside and solemnly presented her 
with his paternal gift, — which for the last thirteen years 
had consisted regularly of a curious gold-piece. Madame 
Grandet gave her daughter a winter dress or a summer 
dress, as the case might be. These two dresses and the 
gold-pieces, of which she received two others on New 
Year’s da}" and on her father’s fete-da}", gave Eugenie a 
little revenue of a hundred crowns or thereabout, which 
Grandet loved to see her amass. Was it not putting 
his money from one strong-box into another, and, as it 
were, training the parsimony of his heiress ? from whom 
he Bometimes demanded an account of her treasure 


EugSnie GrandeL 


38 


(formerly increased by the gifts of the Bertellieres) , 
saying: “It is to be your marriage dozen.” 

^/Xhe “marriage dozen” is an old custom sacredly 
preserved and still in force in many parts of central 
France. In Berry and in Anjou, when a young girl 
marries, her famil}", or that of the husband, must give 
her a purse, in which they place, according to their 
means, twelve pieces, or twelve dozen pieces, or 
twelve hundred pieces of gold. The poorest shepherd- 
girl never marries without her “dozen,” be it only 
a dozen coppers. They still tell in Issoudun of a 
certain “dozen” presented to a rich heiress, which 
contained a hundred and forty-four portugaises d*or. 
Pope Clement VII., uncle of Catherine de’ Medici, 
gave her when he married her to Henri II. a dozen 
antique gold medals of priceless value. 

P During dinner the father, delighted to see his Eu- 
genie looking well in a new gown, exclaimed: “As it 
is Eugenie’s birthday let us have a fire ; it will be a 
good omen.” 

“Mademoiselle will be married this year, that’s 
certain,” said la Grande Nanon, carrying away 
the remains of the goose, — the pheasant of trades- 
men. 

“I don’t see any one suitable for her in Saumur,” 
said Madame Grandet, glancing at her husband with 
a timid look which, considering her j^ears, revealed 

d 


34 EugSnie Grandet. 

the conjugal slavery under which the poor woman 
languished. 

Grandet looked at his daughter and exclaimed 

gayly, — 

“ She is twenty-three years old to-day, the child ; we 
must soon begin to think of it.’^ 

Eugenie and her mother silently exchanged a glance 
of intelligence. 

Madame Grandet was a dr}^ thin woman, as j^ellow 
as a quince, awkward, slow, one of those women who 
are born to be down-trodden. She had big bones, a 
big nose, a big forehead, big eyes, and presented at first 
sight a vague resemblance to those mealy fruits that 
have neither savor nor succulence. Her teeth were 
black and few in number, her mouth was wrinkled, her 
chin long and pointed. She was an excellent woman, 
a true la BertellieneJ L’abbe Cruchot found occasional 
opportunity to tell her that she had not done ill ; and 
she believed him. \ Angelic sweetness, the resignation 
of an insect tortured by children, a rare piety, a good 
heart, an unalterable equanimity of soul, made her 
universally pitied and respected. Her husband never 
gave her more than six francs at a time for her per- 
sonal expenses. Ridiculous as it may seem, this 
woman, who by her own fortune and her various inheri- 
tances brought Pere Grandet more than three hun- 
dred thousand francs, had always felt so profoundly 


Euginie Grandet, 


35 


humiliated by her dependence and the slavery in which 
she lived, against which the gentleness of her spirit 
prevented her from revolting, that she had never asked 
for one penny or made a single remark on the deeds 
which Maitre Cruchot brought for her signature. This 
foolish secret pride, this nobility of soul perpetually 
misunderstood and wounded by Grandet, ruled the 
whole conduct of the wife. 

Madame Grandet was attired habitually in a gown 
of greenish levantine silk, endeavoring to make it last 
nearly a year ; with it she wore a large kerchief of white 
cotton cloth, a bonnet made of plaited straws sewn to- 
gether, and almost always a black-silk apron. As she 
seldom left the house she wore out very few shoes. She 
never asked anything for herself. Grandet, seized with 
occasional remorse when he remembered how long a 
time had elapsed since he gave her the last six francs, 
always stipulated for the “wife’s pin-money” when he 
sold his yearly vintage. The four or five louis pre- 
sented by the Belgian or the Dutchman who purchased 
the wine were the chief \fisible signs of Madame Gran- 
det’s annual revenues. But after she had received the 
five louis, her husband would often say to her, as though 
their purse were held in common: “Can you lend 
me a few sous?” and the poor woman, glad to be 
able to do something for a man whom her confessor 
held up to her as her lord and master, returned him in 


36 


Eugenie Grandet. 

the course of--4he^winter several crowns out of the 
“pin-money.”! When Grandet drew from his pocket 
the five-franc piece which he allowed monthly for the 
minor expenses, — thread, needles, and toilet, — of his 
daughter, he never failed to say as he buttoned his 
breeches’ pocket: “And you, mother, do j’ou want 
anything ? ” 

“ My friend,” Madame Grandet would answer, moved 
by a sense of maternal dignity, “we will see about 
that later.” 

Wasted dignit}". ! Grandet thought himself very 
generous to his wife. Philosophers who meet the like 
of Nanon, of Madame Grandet, of Eugenie, have surely 
a right to say that irony is at the bottom of the wa3^s 
of Providence. 

After the dinner at which for the first time allusion 
had been made to Eugenie’s marriage, Nanon went to 
fetch a bottle of black-currant ratafia from Monsieur 
Grandet’s bed-chamber, and nearly fell as she came 
down the stairs. 

“You great stupid!” said her master; “are you 
going to tumble about like other people, hey?” 

“ Monsieur, it was that step on your staircase which 
has given way.” 

“She is right,” said Madame Grandet; “ it ought 
to have been mended long ago. Yesterday Eugenie 
nearl}^ twisted her ankle.” 


EugSnie Grandet, 


3t 

“ Here/* said Grandet to Nanon, seeing that she 
looked quite pale, “ as it is Eugenie’s birthday, and you 
came near falling, take a little glass of ratafia to set 
3^ou right.” 

“ Faith ! I ’ve earned it,” said Nanon ; “ most people 
would have broken the bottle ; but I ’d sooner have 
broken my elbow holding it up high.” 

“ Poor Nanon ! ” said Grandet, filling a glass. 

“Did you hurt yourself?” asked Eugenie, looking 
kindly at her. 

“No, I didn’t fall; I threw myself back on my 
haunches.” 

“Well! as it’s Eugenie’s birthday,” said Grandet, 
“ I ’ll have the step mended. You people don’t know 
how to set your foot in the corner where the wood is 
still firm.” 

Grandet took the candle, leaving his wife, daugh- 
ter, and servant without any other light than that 
from the hearth, where the flames were lively, and 
went into the bakehouse to fetch planks, nails, and 
tools. 

“ Can I help you?” cried Nanon, hearing him ham- 
mer on the stairs. 

“No, no! I’m an old hand at it,” answered the 
former cooper. 

At the moment when Grandet was mending his 
worm-eaten staircase and whistling with all his might, 


38 


EugSnie Grandet, 


in remembrance of the days of his youth, the three 
Cruchots knocked at the door. 

“Is it you, Monsieur Cruchot?” asked Nanon, 
peeping through the little grating. 

“ Yes,” answered the president. 

Nanon opened the door, and the light from the 
hearth, reflected on the ceiling, enabled the three 
Cruchots to And their way into the room. 

“Ha! you’ve come a-greeting,” said Nanon, smell- 
ing the flowers. 

“ Excuse me, messieurs,” cried Grandet, recognizing 
their voices; “I’ll be with you in a moment. I’m 
not proud ; I am patching up a step on my staircase.” 

“Go on, go on. Monsieur Grandet; a man’s house 
is his castle,” said the president sententiously. 

Madame and Mademoiselle Grandet rose. The 
president, proflting b}^ the darkness, said to Eugenie : 

“ Will you permit me, mademoiselle, to wish you, 
on this the day of your birth, a series of happy years 
and the continuance of the health which you now 
enjoy ?” 

He oflered her a huge bouquet of choice flowers 
which were rare in Saumur; then, taking the heiress 
by the elbows, he kissed her on each side of her neck 
with a complacency that made her blush. The presi- 
dent, who looked like a rusty iron nail, felt that his 
courtship was progressing. 


Eugenie Grandet. 


39 


“ Don’t stand on ceremony,” said Grandet, entering. 
“ How well you do things on fete-days, Monsieur le 
president ! ” 

“ When it concerns mademoiselle,” said the abb^, 
armed with his own bouquet, “ every day is a fete-day 
for my nephew.” 

The abbe kissed Eugenie’s hand. As for Maitre 
Cruchot, he boldly kissed her on both cheeks, remark- 
ing : “ How we sprout up, to be sure ! Every year is 
twelve months.” 

As he replaced the candlestick beside the clock, 
Grandet, who never forgot his own jokes, and re- 
peated them to satiety when he thought them funny, 
said, — 

“As this is Eugenie’s birthday let us illuminate.” 

He carefully took off the branches of the candelabra, 
put a socket on each pedestal, took from Nanon a 
new tallow candle with paper twisted round the end 
of it, put it into the hollow, made it firm, lit it, and 
then sat down beside his wife, looking alternately at 
his friends, his daughter, and the two candles. The 
Abbe Cruchot, a plump, puffy little man, with a red 
wig plastered down and a face like an old female 
gambler, said as he stretched out his feet, well shod 
in stout shoes with silver buckles; “The des Grassins 
have not come?” 

“ Not yet,” said Grandet. 


40 


EugSnie Grandet, 


“But are they coming?” asked the old notary, 
twisting his face, which had as many holes as a col- 
ander, into a queer grimace. 

“ I think so,” answered Madame Grandet. 

“ Are your vintages all finished? ” said Monsieur de 
Bonfons to Grandet. 

“Yes, all of them,” answered the old man, rising 
to walk up and down the room, his chest swelling 
with pride as he said the words “all of them.” 
Through the door of the passage which led to the 
kitchen he saw la Grande Nanon sitting beside her 
fire with a candle and preparing to spin there, so as 
not to intrude among the guests. 

“ Nanon,” he said, going into the passage, “ put 
out that fire and that candle, and come and sit with us. 
Pardieu ! the hall is big enough for all.” 

“ But, monsieur, you are to have the great people.” 

“ Are not j^ou as good as they? They are descended 
from Adam, and so are you.” 

Grandet came back to the president and said, — 

“ Have you sold your vintage ? ” 

“No, not I; I shall keep it. If the wine is good 
this year, it will be better two years hence. The pro- 
prietors, 3^ou know, have made an agreement to keep 
up the price ; and this year the Belgians won’t get 
the better of us. Suppose they are sent off empty 
handed for once, faith ! they ’ll come back.” 


EugSnie GrandeU 


41 


‘‘ Yes, but let us mind what we are about,” said 
Grandet in a tone which made the president tremble. 

“ Is he driving some bargain?” thought Cruchot. 

At this moment the knocker announced the des Gras- 
sins family, and their arrival interrupted a conversation 
which had begun between Madame Grandet and the abbe. 

Madame des Grassins was one of those lively, plump 
little women, with pink-and-white skins, who, thanks to 
the claustral calm of the provinces and the habits of a 
virtuous life, keep their 3’outh until they are past forty. 
She was like the last rose of autumn, — pleasant to the 
eye, though the petals have a certain frostiness, and 
their perfume is slight. She dressed well, got her fash- 
ions from Paris, set the tone to Saumur, and gave par- 
ties. Her husband, formerly a quartermaster in the 
Imperial guard, who had been desperately wounded at 
Austerlitz, and had since retired, still retained, in spite 
of his respect for Grandet, the seeming frankness of 
an old soldier. 

“Good evening, Grandet,” he said, holding out 
his hand and affecting a sort of superiority, with 
which he always crushed the Cruchots. “Made- 
moiselle,” he added, turning to Eugenie, after bow- 
ing to Madame Grandet, “you are always beautiful 
and good, and truly I do not know what to wish 
you.” So saying, he offered her a little box which 
his servant had brought and which contained a Cape 


42 EugSnie Grrandet, 

heather, — a flower lately imported into Europe and 
very rare. 

Madame des Grassins kissed Eugenie very affection- 
ately, pressed her hand, and said : “ Adolphe wishes to 
make you my little offering.” 

A tall, blond young man, pale and slight, with toler- 
able manners and seemingly rather shy, although he had 
just spent eight or ten thousand francs over and above 
his allowance in Paris, where he had been sent to study 
law, now came forward and kissed Eugenie on both 
cheeks, offering her a workbox with utensils in silver- 
gilt, — mere show-case trumpery, in spite of the mono- 
gram E. G. in gothic letters rather well engi’aved, which 
belonged properly to something in better taste. As she 
opened it, Eugenie experienced one of those unexpected 
and perfect delights which make a j’oung girl blush and 
quiver and tremble with pleasure. She turned her eyes 
to her father as if to ask permission to accept it, and 
Monsieur Grandet replied: “Take it, my daughter,” 
in a tone which would have made an actor illustrious. 

The three Cruchots felt crushed as they saw the 
joyous, animated look cast upon Adolphe des Grassins 
by the heiress, to whom such riches were unheard-of. 
Monsieur des Grassins offered Grandet a pinch of snuff, 
took one himself, shook off the grains as they fell on 
the ribbon of the Legion of honor which was attached 
to the button-hole of his blue surtout ; then he looked at 


EugSnie Grandet, 4S 

the Cruchots with an air that seemed to say, “ Parry 
that thrust if you can ! ” Madame des Grassins cast 
her eyes on the blue vases which held the Cruchot 
bouquets, looking at the enemy’s gifts with the pre- 
tended interest of a satirical woman. At this delicate 
juncture the Abbe Cruchot left the company seated 
in a circle round the fire and joined Grandet at the 
lower end of the hall. As the two men reached the 
embrasure of the farthest window the priest said in 
the miser’s ear : ‘ ‘ Those people throw money out of 
the windows.” 

“What does that matter if it gets into my cellar?” 
retorted the old wine-grower. 

“If 3^ou want to give gilt scissors to 3"our daughter, 
you have the means,” said the abbe. 

“ I give her something better than scissors,” answered 
Grandet. 

“ My nephew is a blockhead,” thought the abbe as 
he looked at the president, whose rumpled hair added to 
the ill grace of his brown countenance. “Couldn’t he 
have found some little trifie which cost money ? ” 

“ We will join you at cards, Madame Grandet,” said 
Madame des Grassins. 

“We might have two tables, as we are all here.” 

“As it is Eugenie’s birthday you had better play 
loto all together,” said Pere Grandet : “the two 3^oung 
ones can join ; ” and the old cooper, who never played 


44 


Eugenie Grandet 


any game, motioned to his daughter and Adolphe. 
“ Come, Nanon, set the tables.” 

“We will help 3^ou, Mademoiselle Nanon,” said 
Madame des Grassins gayly, quite joyous at the joy she 
had given Eugenie. 

“ I have never in my life been so pleased,” the heir- 
ess said to her; “I have never seen anything so 
pretty.” 

“Adolphe brought it from Paris, and he chose it,” 
Madame des Grassins whispered in her ear. 

“ Go on ! go on ! damned intriguing thing ! ” thought 
the president. “ If j^ou ever have a suit in court, 3 011 
or your husband, it shall go hard with 3^ou.” 

The notar3', sitting in his corner, looked calml3" at 
the abbe, sa3dng to himself : ‘ ‘ The des Grassins may 
do what the3" hke ; m3" property and my brother’s and 
that of my nephew amount in all to eleven hundred 
thousand francs. The des Grassins, at the most, have 
not half that ; besides, the3^ have a daughter. The3^ nia3" 
give what presents the3' like ; heiress and presents too 
will be ours one of these da3'S.” 

At half-past eight in the evening the two card-tables 
were set out. Madame des Grassins succeeded in put- 
ting her son beside Eugenie. The actors in this scene, 
so full of interest, commonplace as it seems, were pro- 
vided with bits of pasteboard striped in many colors 
and numbered, and with counters of blue glass, and 


Euginie Qrandet. 


45 


they appeared to be listening to the jokes of the notary, 
who never drew a number without making a remark, 
while in fact they were all thinking of Monsieur Gran 
det^s millions. The old cooper, with inward self-conceit, 
was contemplating the pink feathers and the fresh toilet 
of Madame des Grassins, the martial head of the 
banker, the faces of Adolphe, the president, the abbe, 
and the notary, saying to himself, — 

“They are all after my money. Hey! neither the 
one nor the other shall have my daughter; but they 
ara useful — useful as harpoons to fish with.” 

^This family gayety in the old gray room dimly lighted 
b}' two tallow candles ; this laughter, accompanied b}" 
the whirr of Nanon’s spinning-wheel, sincere only upon 
the lips of Eugenie or her mother ; this triviality min- 
gled with important interests ; this young girl, who, 
like certain birds made victims of the price put upon 
them, was now lured and trapped by proofs of friend- 
ship of which she was the dupe, — all these things 
contributed to make the scene a melancholy comedy. 
Is it not, moreover, a drama of all times and all places, 
though here brought down to its simplest expression? 
The figure of Grandet, playing his own game with 
the false friendship of the twO families and getting 
enormous profits from it, dominates the scene and 
throws light upon it. The modern god, — the only 
god in whom faith is preserved, — money, is here, in 


46 


Euginie G-randet. 


all its power, manifested in a single countenance. The 
tender sentiments of life hold here but a secondary 
place ; only the three pure, simple hearts of Nanon, of 
Eugenie, and of her mother are inspired by them. And 
how much of ignorance there was in the simplicity 
of these poor women ! Eugenie and her mother knew 
nothing of Grandet’s wealth ; they could only estimate 
the things of life b}^ the glimmer of their pale ideas, 
and they neither valued nor despised money, because 
they were accustomed to do without it. Their feelings, 
bruised, though they did not know it, but ever-living, 
were the secret spring of their existence, and made them 
curious exceptions in the midst of these other people 
whose lives were purely material. Frightful condition 
of the human race ! there is no one of its joys that 
does not come from some species of ignorance. 

/ At the moment when Madame Grandet had won a 
; loto of sixteen sous, — the largest ever pooled in that 
house, — and while la Grande Nanon was laughing with 
delight as she watched madame pocketing her riches, 
the knocker resounded on the house-door with such a 
noise that the women all jumped in their chairs. 

“ There is no man in Saumur who would knock like 
that,” said the notary. 

“How can they bang in that way!” exclaimed 
Nanon; “do they want to break in the door.^” 

“ Who the devil is it?” cried Grandet. 


EugSnie Qrand^t. 


47 


III. 

Nanon took one of the candles and went to open the 
door, followed by her master. 

“Grandet! Grandet !” cried his wife, moved by a 
sudden impulse of fear, and running to the door of 
the room. 

All the players looked at each other. 

“ Suppose we all go? ” said Monsieur des Grassins ; 
“ that knock strikes me as evil-intentioned.’* 

Hardly was Monsieur des Grassins allowed to see 
the figure of a young man, accompanied by a porter 
from the coach-oflSce carrying two large trunks and 
dragging a carpet-bag after him, than Monsieur Grandet 
turned roughly on his wife and said, — 

“ Madame Grandet, go back to your loto ; leave 
me to speak with monsieur.” 

Then he pulled the door quickly to, and the excited 
players returned to their seats, but did not continue 
the game. 

“Is it any one belonging to Saumur, Monsieur des 
Grassins ? ” asked his wife. 

“ No, it is a traveller.*^ 


48 


EugSnie Grandet, 


“ He must have come from Paris.” 

“ Just so,” said the notary, pulling out his old watch, 
which was two inches thick and looked like a Dutch 
man-of-war; “it’s nine o’clock: the diligence of the 
Grand Bureau is never late.” 

“Is the gentleman young?” inquired the Abbe 
Cruchot. 

“Yes,” answered Monsieur des Grassins, “and he 
has brought luggage which must weigh nearly three 
tons.” 

“ Nanon does not come back,” said Eugenie. 

“ It must be one of your relations,” remarked the 
president. 

“ Let us go on with our game,” said Madame Gran- 
det gently. “ I know from Monsieur Grandet’s tone 
of voice that he is annoyed ; perhaps he would not 
like to find us talking of his aflairs.” 

“Mademoiselle,” said Adolphe to his neighbor, “it 
is no doubt your cousin Grandet, — a very good- 
looking young man ; I met him at the ball of Mon- 
sieur de Nucingen.” Adolphe did not go on, for his 
mother trod on his toes ; and then, asking him aloud 
for two sous to put on her stake, she whispered : “ Will 
you hold your tongue, you great goose ! ” 

At this moment Grandet returned, without la Grande 
Nanon, whose steps, together with those of the porter, 
echoed up the staircase ; and he was followed bj’ the 


Eugenie GrandeL 


49 


traveller who had excited such curiosity and so filled 
the lively imaginations of those present that his arri- 
val at this dwelling, and his sudden fall into the midst 
of this assembl}^, can only be likened to that of a snail 
into a beehive, or the introduction of a peacock into 
some village poultry-yard. 

“ Sit down near the fire,” said Grandet. 

Before seating himself, the young stranger saluted 
the assembled company very gracefully. The men rose 
to answer by a courteous inclination, and the women 
made a ceremonious bow. 

“ You are cold, no doubt, monsieur,” said Madame 
Grandet; “you have, perhaps, travelled from — ” 

“ Just like all women ! ” said the old wine-grower, 
looking up from a letter he was reading. “ Do let 
monsieur rest himself! ” 

“ But, father, perhaps monsieur would like to take 
something,” said Eugenie. 

“ Her has got a tongue,” said the old man sternly. 

The stranger was the only person surprised by this 
scene ; all the others were well-used to the despotic 
ways of the master. However, after the two ques- 
tions and the two replies had been exchanged, the new- 
comer rose, turned his back towards the fire, lifted one 
foot so as to warm the sole of its boot, and said to 
Eugenie, — 

“ Thank you, my cousin, but I dined at Tours. 


50 


EugSnie Grandet, 


And,” he added, looking at Grandet, “ I need nothing; 
I am not even tired.” 

“Monsieur has come from the capital?” asked 
Madame des Grassins. 

Monsieur Charles, — such was the name of the son 
of Monsieur Grandet of Paris, — hearing himself ad- 
dressed, took a little eye-glass, suspended by a chain 
from his neck, applied it to his right eye to examine 
what was on the table, and also the persons sitting 
round it. He ogled Madame des Grassins with much 
impertinence, and said to her, after he had observed all 
he wished, — 

“ Yes, madame. You are plapng at loto, aunt,” he 
added. “Do not let me interrupt you, I beg; go on 
with your game : it is too amusing to leave.” 

“ I was certain it was the cousin,” thought Madame 
des Grassins, casting repeated glances at him. 

“Forty-seven!” cried the old abbe. “Mark it 
down, Madame des Grassins. Is n’t that your num* 
her? ” 

Monsieur des Grassins put a counter on his wife’s 
card, who sat watching first the cousin from Paris and 
then Eugenie, without thinking of her loto, a prey to 
mournful presentiments. From time to time the young 
heiress glanced furtivel}^ at her cousin, and the bank- 
er’s wife easily detected a crescendo of surprise and 
curiosity in her mind. 


EugSnie Grandet. 


51 


Monsieur Charles Grandet, a handsome young man 
of twenty-two, presented at this moment a singular 
contrast to the worthy provincials, who, considerably 
disgusted by his aristocratic manners, were all studying 
him with sarcastic i nten^ This needs an explanation. 
At twenty-two, yoUhg'p^ple are still so near childhood 
that they often conduct themselves childishly. In all 
probability, out of every hundred of them fully ninety- 
nine would have behaved precisely as Monsieur Charles 
Grandet was now behaving. 

Some days earlier than this his father had told him to 
go and spend several months with his uncle at Saumur. 
Perhaps Monsieur Grandet was thinking of Eugenie. 
Charles, sent for the first time in his life into the prov- 
inces, took a fancy to make his appearance with the 
superiority of a man of fashion, to reduce the whole 
arrondissement to despair by his luxury, and to make 
his visit an epoch, importing into those country regions 
all the refinements of Parisian life. In short, to ex- 
plain it in one word, he meant to pass more time at 
Saumur in brushing his nails than he ever thought of 
doing in Paris, and to assume the extreme nicety and 
elegance of dress which a young man of fashion often 
lays aside for a certain negligence which in itself is not 
devoid of grace. Charles therefore brought with him 
a complete hunting-costume, the finest gun, the best 
hunting-knife in the prettiest sheath to be found in all 


52 


EugSnie Grandet. 


Paris. He brought his whole collection of waistcoats. 
They were of all kinds, — gray, black, white, scarabseus- 
colored : some were shot with gold, some spangled, 
some chined; some were double-breasted and crossed 
like a shawl, others were straight in the collar ; some 
had turned-over collars, some buttoned up to the top 
with gilt buttons. He brought every variety of collar 
and cravat in fashion at that epoch. He brought two 
of Buisson’s coats and all his finest linen. He brought 
his pretty gold toilet-set, — a present from his mother. 
He brought all his dandy knick-knacks, not forget- 
ting a raAushing little desk presented to him b}^ the 
most amiable of women, — amiable for him, at least, — 
a fine lady whom he called Annette and who at this 
moment was travelling, matrimonially and weariedly, 
in Scotland, a victim to certain suspicions which re- 
quired a passing sacrifice of happiness ; in the desk 
was much pretty note-paper on which to write to her 
once a fortnight. 

In short, it was as complete a cargo of Parisian fri- 
volities as it was possible for him to get together, — a col- 
lection of all the implements of husbandry with which 
the youth of leisure tills his life, from the little whip 
which helps to begin a duel, to the handsomely chased 
pistols which end it. His father having told him to 
travel alone and modestly, he had taken the coup^ of 
the diligence all to himself, rather pleased not to dam- 


EugSriie QrandeU 


53 


age a delightful travelling-carriage ordered for a jour- 
ney on which he was to meet his Annette, the great 
lady who, etc., — whom he intended to rejoin atl^aden 
in the following June. Charles expected to meet scores 
of people at his uncle’s house, to hunt in his uncle’s 
forests, — to live, in short, the usual chateau life ; he did 
not know that his uncle was in Saumur, and had onh^ 
inquired about him incidentally when asking the way to 
Froidfond. Hearing that he was in town, he supposed 
that he should find him in a suitable mansion. 

In order that he might make a becoming first appear- 
ance before his uncle either at Saumur or at Froidfond, 
he had put on his most elegant travelling attire, simple 
yet exquisite, — “ adorable,” to use the word which in 
those days summed up the special perfections of a man 
or a thing. At Tours a hairdresser had re-curled his 
beautiful chestnut locks ; there he changed his linen and 
put on a black satin cravat, which, combined with a round 
shirt-collar, framed his fair and smiling countenance 
agreeably. A travelling great-coat, only half buttoned 
up, nipped in his waist and disclosed a cashmere waist- 
coat crossed in front, beneath which was another waist- 
coat of white material. His watch, negligently slipped 
into a pocket, was fastened by a short gold chain to a 
buttonhole. His gray trousers, buttoned up at the 
sides, were set off at the seams with patterns of black 
silk embroidery. He gracefully twirled a cane, whose 


54 


EugSnie Grrandet, 


chased gold knob did not mar the freshness of his gray 
glove s. And to complete all, his cap was in excellent 
taste. { None but a Parisian, and a Parisian of the up- 
per spheres, could thus array himself without appearing 
ridiculous ; none other could give the harmony of self- 
conceit to all these fopperies, which were carried off, 
however, with a dashing air, — the air of a young man 
who has fine pistols, a sure aim, and Annette. 

Now if you wish to understand the mutual amaze- 
ment of the provincial party and the j'oung Parisian ; if 
you would clearly see the brilliance which the traveller’s 
elegance cast among the gray shadows of the room and 
upon the faces of this family group, — endeavor to picture 
to your minds the Cruchots. All three took snuff, and 
had long ceased to repress the habit of snivelling or to 
remove the brown blotches which strewed the frills of 
their dingy shirts and the yellowing creases of their 
crumpled collars. Their flabby cravats were twisted 
into ropes as soon as they wound them about their 
throats. The enormous quantity of linen which allowed 
these people to have their clothing washed only once 
in six months, and to keep it during that time in the 
depths of their closets, also enabled time to lay its grimy 
and decaying stains upon it. There was perfect unison 
of ill-grace and senility about them ; their faces, as faded 
as their threadbare coats, as creased as their trousers, 
were worn-out, shrivelled-up, and puckered. As for the 


EugSnie Grandet, 


55 


others, the general negligence of their dress, which was 
incomplete and wanting in freshness, — like the toilet of 
all country places, where insensibly’ people cease to dress 
for others and come to think seriously’ of the price of a 
pair of gloves, — was in keeping with the negligence of 
the Cruchots. A horror of fashion was the only point 
on which the Grassinists and the Cruchotines agreed. 

When the Parisian took up his ey’e-glass to examine 
the strange accessories of this dwelling, — the joists of 
the ceiling, the color of the woodwork, and the specks 
which the flies had left there in sufficient number to 
punctuate the “ Moniteur” and the “ Ency^clopaedia of 
Sciences,” — the loto-players lifted their noses and 
looked at him with as much curiosity as they might 
have felt about a giraffe. Monsieur des Grassins and 
his son, to whom the appearance of a man of fashion 
was not wholly unknown, were nevertheless as much 
astonished as their neighbors, whether it was that they 
fell under the indefinable influence of the general feeling, 
or that they really shared it as with satirical glances 
they seemed to say’ to their compatriots, — 

“ That is what you see in Paris ! ” 

They were able to examine Charles at their leisure 
without fearing to displease the master of the house. 
Grandet was absorbed in the long letter which he held 
in his hand ; and to read it he had taken the only candle 
upon the card-table, paying no heed to his guests or 


56 


EugSnie Grandet. 


their pleasure. Eugenie, to whom such a type of per- 
fection, whether of dress or of person, was absolutely 
unknown, thought she beheld in her cousin a being 
descended from seraphic spheres. She inhaled with 
delight the fragrance wafted from the graceful curls of 
that brilliant head. She would have liked to touch the 
soft kid of the delicate gloves. She envied Charles his 
small hands, his comj|lexion, the freshness and refine- 
ment of his featuresj In short, — if it is possible to 
sum up the effect this elegant being produced upon an 
ignorant young girl perpetually empIo3"ed in darning 
stockings or in mending her father’s clothes, and whose 
life fiowed on beneath these unclean rafters, seeing none 
but occasional passers along the silent street, — this 
vision of her cousin roused in her soul an emotion of 
delicate desire like that inspired in a 3"oung man by the 
fanciful pictures of women drawn by Westall for the 
English “ Keepsakes,” and engraved by the Findens 
with so clever a tool that we fear, as we breathe upon 
the paper, that the celestial apparitions may be wafted 
away. Charles drew from his pocket a handkerchief 
embroidered by the great lady now travelling in Scot- 
land. As Eugenie saw this pretty piece of work, done 
in the vacant hours which were lost to love, she looked 
at her cousin to see if it were possible that he meant to 



manners of the 3"oung man, his 


gestures, the way in which be took up his e3^e-glass, his 


EugSnie Grandet, 


57 


affected superciliousness, his contemptuous glance at 
the coffer which had just given so much pleasure to 
the rich heiress, and which he evidently regarded as 
without value, or even as ridiculous, — all these things, 
which shocked the Cruchots and the des Grassins, 
pleased Eugenie so deeply that before she slept she 
dreamed long dreams of her phoenix cousin. 

The loto-numbers were drawn very slowly, and pres- 
ently the game came suddenly to an end. La Grande 
Nanon entered and said aloud : Madame, I want the 
sheets for monsieur's bed.” 

Madame Grandet followed her out. Madame des 
Grassins said in a low voice : “ Let us keep our sous 
and stop playing.” Each took his or her two sous 
from the chipped saucer in which they had been put ; 
then the party moved in a body toward the fire. 

“Have you finished your game?” said Grandet, 
without looking up from his letter. 

“ Yes, yes! ” replied Madame des Grassins, taking 
a seat near Charles. 

Eugenie, prompted by a thought often born in the 
heart of a young girl when sentiment enters it for the 
first time, left the room to go and help her mother 
and Nanon^Had an able confessor then questioned 
her she would, no doubt, have avowed to him that she 
thought neither of her mother nor of Nanon, but was 
pricked by a poignant desire to look after her cousin's 


58 


EugSnie Grandet. 


room and concern herself with her cousin; to supply 
what might be needed, to remedy any forgetfulness, to 
see that all was done to make it, as far as possible, 
suitable and elegant ; and, in fact, she arrived in time 
to prove to her mother and Nanon that everything still 
remained to be done. She put into Nanon’s head the 
notion of passing a warming-pan between the sheets. 
She herself covered the old table with a cloth and re- 
quested Nanon to change it every morning; she con- 
vinced her mother that it was necessary to light a good 
fire, and persuaded Nanon to bring up a great pile of 
wood into the corridor without saying anything to her 
father. She ran to get, from one of the corner-shelves 
of the hall, a tray of old lacquer which was part of 
the inheritance of the late Monsieur de la Bertelliere, 
catching up at the same time a six-sided crystal goblet, 
a little tarnished gilt spoon, an antique fiask engraved 
with cupids, all of which she put triumphantly on the 
corner of her cousin’s chimney-piece. More ideas surged 
through her head in one quarter of an hour than she 
had ever had since she came into the world. 

“ Mamma,” she said, “ my cousin will never bear the 
smell of a tallow candle ; suppose we buy a wax one ? ” 
And she darted, swift as a bird, to get tie five-franc 
piece which she had just received for her monthly 
expenses. “ Here, Nanon,” she cried, “ quick ! ” 

“ What will your father say? ” This terrible remon- 


EugSnie GrandeL 


59 


strance was uttered by Madame Grandet as she beheld 
her daughter armed with an old Sevres sugar-basin 
which Grandet had brought home from the chateau of 
Froidfrond. “ And where will you get the sugar? Are 
you crazy ? ” 

“ Mamma, Nanon can buy some sugar as well as the 
candle.” 

“ But your father? ” 

“ Surely his nephew ought not to go without a glass 
of eau sucreef Besides, he will not notice it.” 

“ Your father sees everything,” said Madame Gran- 
det, shaking her head. 

Nanon hesitated ; she knew her master. 

“ Come, Nanon, go, — because it is my birthday.” 

Nanon gave a loud laugh as she heard the first lit- 
tle jest her young mistress had ever made, and then 
obeyed her. 

While Eugenie and her mother were trying to em- 
bellish the bedroom assigned by Monsieur Grandet for 
his nephew, Charles him^lf was the object of Madame 
des Grassins’ attentionsT to all appearance she was 
setting her cap at htm. 

“You are yqxj courageous, monsieur,” she said to 
the young dandy, “ to leave the pleasures of the capital 
at this season and take up your abode in Saumur. 
But if we do not frighten ^^ou away, 3^ou will find there 
are some amusements even here.” 


60 


EugSnie Grandet, 


She threw him the ogling glance of the provinces, 
where women put so much prudence and reserve into 
their eyes that they impart to them the prudish concu- 
piscence peculiar to certain ecclesiastics to whom all 
pleasure is either a theft or an error. Charles was so 
completely out of his element in this abode, and so far 
from the vast chateau and the sumptuous life with 
which his fancy had endowed his uncle, that as he 
looked at Madame des Grassins he perceived a dim 
likeness to Parisian faces. He gracefully responded 
to the species of invitation addressed to him, and be- 
gan very naturally a conversation, in which Madame 
des Grassins gradually lowered her voice so as to bring 
it into harmony with the nature of the confidences she 
was making. With her, as with Charles, there was the 
need of conference ; so after a few moments spent in 
coquettish phrases and a little serious jesting, the clever 
provincial said, thinking herself unheard by the others, 
who were discussing the sale of wines which at that 
season filled the heads of ev^" one in Saumur, — 

“ Monsieur, if you will do ps the honor to come and 
see us, you will give as much pleasure to my husband 
as to myself. Our salon is the only one in Saumur 
where you will find the higher business circles mingling 
with the nobility. We belong to both societies, who 
meet at our house simply because they find it amusing. 
My husband — I say it with pride — is as much valued 


EugSnie Grandet. 


61 


by the one class as by the other. We will try to relieve 
the monotony of your visit here. If you stay all the 
time with Monsieur Grandet, good heavens ! what will 
become of you? Your uncle is a sordid miser who 
thinks of nothing but his vines ; your aunt is a pious 
soul who can’t put two ideas together ; and your cousin 
is a little fool, without education, perfectly common, no 
fortune, who will spend her life in darning towels.” 

“ She is really very nice, this woman,” thought 
Charles Grandet as he duly responded to Madame des 
Grassins* coquetries. 

“ It seems to me, wife, that you are taking posses- 
sion of .’sxonsieur,” said the stout banker, laughing. 

On this remark the notary and the president said a 
few words that were more or less significant ; but the 
abbe, looking at them slyly, brought their thoughts to 
a focus by taking a pinch of snuff and saying as he 
handed round his snuflT-box : “ Who can do the honors 
of Saumur for monsieur so well as madame ? ” 

“ Ah ! what do you mean by that, monsieur I’abbe? ” 
demanded Monsieur des Grassins. 

“ I mean it in the best possible sense for you, for 
madame, for the town of Saumur, and for monsieur,” 
said the wily old man, turning to Charles. 

The Abb4 Cruchot had guessed the conversation be- 
tween Charles and Madame des Grassins without seem- 
ing to pay attention to it. 


62 


Eugenie Grandet. 


“ Monsieur,” said Adolphe to Charles with an ail 
which he tried to make free and easy, “ I don’t know 
whether you remember me, but I had the honor of 
dancing as your vis-a-vis at a ball given by the Baron 
de Nucingen, and — ” 

“Perfectly; I remember perfectly, monsieur,” an- 
swered Charles, pleased to find himself the object of 
general attention. 

“Monsieur is your son?” he said to Madame des 
Grassins. 

The abbd looked at her maliciously. 

“ Yes, monsieur,” she answered. 

“ Then you were very young when you were ii? 
Paris?” said Charles, addressing Adolphe. 

“ You must know, monsieur,” said the abb6, “ that 
we send them to Babylon as soon as they are weaned.” 

Madame des Grassins examined the abb^ with a 
glance of extreme penetration. 

“It is only in the provinces,” he continued, “that 
you will find women of thirty and more years as fresh 
as madame, here, with a son about to take his degree. 
I almost fancy myself back in the days when the young 
men stood on chairs in the ball-rooms to see you dance, 
madame,” added the abbc, turning to his female adver- 
sary. “ To me, your triumphs are but of j’esterday — ” 

“The old rogue!” thought Madame des Grassins; 
“ can he have guessed my intentions?” 


EugSnie Grandet, 


63 


“It seems that I shall have a good deal of success 
in Saumur,” thought Charles as he unbuttoned his 
great-coat, put his hand into his waistcoat, and cast 
a glance into the far distance, to imitate the attitude 
which Chantre}^ has given to Lord BjTon. 
f The inattention of Pere Grandet, or, to speak more 
Miruly, the preoccupation of mind into which the reading 
of the letter had plunged him, did not escape the vigi- 
lance of the notary and the president, who tried to guess 
the contents of the letter by the almost imperceptible 
motions of the miser’s face, which was then under the 
full light of the candle. He maintained the habitual 
calm of his features with evident difficult}’ ; we may, in 
fact, picture to ourselves the countenance such a man 
endeavored to preserve as he read the fatal letter which 
here follows : — 

My Brother, — It is almost twenty-three years since we 
have seen each other. My marriage was the occasion of our 
last interview, after which we parted, and both of us were 
happy. Assuredly I could not then foresee that you would 
one day be the prop of the family whose prosperity you then 
predicted. 

When you hold this letter within your hands I shall be no 
longer living. In the position I now hold I cannot survive 
the disgrace of bankruptcy. I have waited on the edge of 
the gulf until the last moment, hoping to save myself. The 
end has come, I must sink into it. The doub/e bankruptcies 
of my broker and of Roguin, my notary, have carried off my 


64 


Eugenie Grandet. 


last resources and left me nothing. I have the bitterness of 
owing nearly four millions, with assets not more than twenty- 
five per cent in value to pay them. The wines in my ware- 
houses suffer from the fall in prices caused by the abundance 
and quality of your vintage. In three days Paris will cry 
out: “Monsieur Grandet was a knave!” and I, an honest 
man, shall be lying in my winding-sheet of infamy. I de- 
prive my son of a good name, which I have stained, and the 
fortune of his mother, which I have lost. He knows nothing 
of all this, — my unfortunate child whom I idolize! We 
parted tenderly. He was ignorant, happily, that the last 
beatings of my heart were spent in that farewell. Will he 
not some day curse me? My brother, my brother! the curses 
of our children are horrible ; they can appeal against ours, but 
theirs are irrevocable. Grandet, you are my elder brother, 
you owe me your protection ; act for me so that Charles may 
cast no bitter words upon my grave ! My brother, if I were 
writing with my blood, with my tears, no greater anguish 
could I put into this letter, — nor as great, for then I should 
weep, I should bleed, I should die, I should suffer no more, 
but now I suffer and look at death with dry eyes. 

“ From henceforth you are my son’s father; he has no rela- 
tions, as you well know, on his mother’s side. Why did I 
not consider social prejudices? Why did I yield to love? 
Why did I marry the natural daughter of a great lord? 
Charles has no family. Oh, my unhappy son! my son! 
Listen, Grandet ! I implore nothing for myself, — besides, 
your property may not be large enough to carry a mortgage 
of three millions, — but for my son! Brother, my suppliant 
hands are clasped as I think of you; behold them! Grandet, 
I confide my son to you in dying, and I look at the means of 
death with less pain aa I think that you will be to him a 


EugSnie Grandet. 


65 


father. He loved me well, my Charles; I was good to him, 
I never thwarted him; he will not curse me. Ah, you will 
see I he is gentle, he is like his mother, he will cause you no 
grief. Poor boy ! accustomed to all the enjoyments of lux- 
ury, he knows nothing of the privations to which you and I 
were condemned by the poverty of our youth. And I leave 
him ruined! alone! Yes, all my friends will avoid him, 
and it is I who have brought this humiliation upon him! 
Would that I had the force to send him with one thrust into 
the heavens to his mother’s side ! Madness ! I come back to 
my disaster — to his. I send him to you that you may tell 
him iu some fitting way of my death, of his future fate. 
Be a father to him, but a good father. Do not tear him all 
at once from his idle life, it would kill him. I beg him on 
my knees to renounce all rights that, as his mother’s heir, he 
may have on my estate. But the prayer is superfluous ; he is 
honorable, and he will feel that he must not appear among 
my creditors. Bring him to see this at the right time ; re- 
veal to him the hard conditions of the life I have made for 
him : and if he still has tender thoughts of me, tell him iu 
my name that all is not lost for him. Yes, work, labor, 
which saved us both, may give him back the fortune of 
which I have deprived him ; and if he listens to his father’s 
voice as it reaches him from beyond the grave, he will go to 
the Indies. My brother, Charles is an upright and courageous 
young man: give him the wherewithal to make his venture; 
he will die sooner than not repay you the funds which you 
may lend him. Grandet! if you will not do this, you will 
lay up for yourself remorse. Ah, should my child find 
neither tenderness nor succor in you, I would call down the 
vengeance of God upon your cruelty ! 

If I had been able to save something from the wreck, I 
6 


66 


Euginie. Grandet, 


might have had the right to leave him at least a portion of 
his mother’s property; but my last monthly payments have 
absorbed everything. I did not wish to die uncertain of my 
child’s fate ; I hoped to feel a sacred promise in a clasp of 
your hand which might have warmed my heart: but time 
fails me. While Charles ft journeying to you I shall be 
preparing my assignment. I shall endeavor to show by the 
order and good faith of my accounts that my disaster comes 
neither from a faulty life . nor from dishonesty. It is for 
my son’s sake that I strive to do this. 

Farewell, my brother! May the blessing of God be 
yours for the generous guardianship I lay upon you, and 
which, I doubt not, you will accept. A voice will hence- 
forth and forever pray for you in that world where we must 
all go, and where I am now as you read these lines. 

Victor-Ange-Gillaume Grandet. 

“ So you are talking ? ” said Pere Grandet as he care- 
fully folded the letter in its original creases and put it 
into his waistcoat-pocket. He looked at his nephew 
with a humble, timid air, beneath which he hid his feel- 
ings and his calculations. “ Have you warmed your- 
self? ” he said to him. 

“ Thorough!}", my dear uncle.” 

“Well, where are the women?” said his uncle, al- 
ready forgetting that his nephew was to sleep at the 
house. At this moment Eugenie and Madame Grandet 
returned. 

“ Is the room all ready?” said Grandet, recovering 
his composure. 


Eug6nie Grandet, 


67 


“Yes, father.” 

“Well then, my nephew, if you are tired, Nanon shall 
show you your room. It is n’t a dandy’s room ; but you 
will excuse a poor vine-grower who never has a penny 
to spare. Taxes swallow up everything.” 

“We do not wish to intrude, Grandet,” said the 
banker; “you maj^ want to talk with your nephew, 
and therefore we will bid you good-night.” 

At these words the assembly rose, and each made a 
parting bow in keeping with his or her own character. 
The old notary went to the door to fetch his lantern 
and came back to light it, offering to accompany the 
des Grassins on their wa}^ Madame des Grassins had 
not foreseen the incident which brought the evening 
prematurely to an end, her servant therefore had not 
arrived. 

“ Will you do me the honor to take my arm, ma- 
dame?” said the abbe. 

“Thank you, monsieur I’abbe, but I have my son,” 
she answered dryl}^ 



cannot compromise themselves with me,” 


said the abb^. 

“Take Monsieur Cruchot’s arm,” said her hus- 
band. 

The abbe walked off with the pretty ladj^ so quickly 
that they were soon some distance in advance of the 


caravan. 


68 


EugSnie Grandet 


“ That is a good-looking young man, madame,” he 
said, pressing her arm. “ Good-by to the grapes, the 
vintage is done. It is all over with us. We may as 
well say adieu to Mademoiselle Grandet. Eugenie will 
belong to the dandy. Unless this cousin is enamoured 
of some Parisian woman, your son Adolphe will find 
another rival in — ” 

“ Not at all, monsieur Tabbe. This 3^oung man 
cannot fail to see that Eugenie is a little fool, — a girl 
without the least freshness. Did you notice her to- 
night? She was as 3^ellow as a quince.” 

“ Perhaps you made the cousin notice it ? ” 

“ I did not take the trouble — ” 

“Place 3’ourself alwa3"s beside Eugenie, madame, 
and 3'ou need never take the trouble to say anything 
to the young man against his cousin ; he will make his 
own comparisons, which — ” 

“Well, he has promised to dine with me the day 
after to-morrow.” 

“ Ah ! if 3"ou only would^ madame — ” said the abbe. 
“ What is it that you wish me to do, monsieur Tabbe? 
Do you mean to offer me bad advice? I have not 
reached the age of thirt3"-nine, without a stain upon my 
reputation, thank God ! to compromise myself now, 
even for the empire of the Great Mogul. You and 
I are of an age when we both know the meaning 
of words. For an ecclesiastic, you certainl3^ have 


EugSnie Grandet, 69 

ideas that are very incongruous. Fie! it is worthy 
of Faublas ! ” 

“You have read Faublas?” 

“No, monsieur I’abbe ; I meant to say the Liaisons 
dangereuses.^* 

“Ah! that book is infinitely more moral,” said the 
abbe, laughing. “ But you make me out as wicked as a 
young man of the present day ; I only meant — ” 

“ Do you dare to tell me you were not thinking of 
putting wicked things into my head? Is n’t it per- 
fectly clear? If this young man — who I admit is very 
good-looking — were to make love to me, he would not 
think of his cousin. In Paris, I know, good mothers 
do devote themselves in this way to the happiness and 
welfare of their children ; but we live in the provinces, 
monsieur I’abbe.” 

“Yes, madame.” 

“ And,” she continued, “ I do not want, and Adolphe 
himself would not want, a hundred millions bought at 
such a price.” 

“ Madame, I said nothing about a hundred millions ; 
that temptation might be too great for either of us to 
withstand. Only, I do think that an honest woman 
may permit herself, in all honor, certain harmless little 
coquetries, which are, in fact, part of her social duty 
and which — ” 

“ Do you think so? ” 


70 


EugSnie G-randeU 


“ Are we not bound, madame, to make ourselves 
agreeable to each other? — Permit me to blow my 
nose. — I assure you, madame,” he resumed, “that 
the young gentleman ogled 3’ou through his glass in 
a more flattering manner than he put on when he 
looked at me ; but I forgive him for doing homage to 
beauty in preference to old age — ” 

“ It is quite apparent,” said the president in his loud 
voice, “that Monsieur Grandet of Paris has sent his 
son to Saumur with extremel}'^ matrimonial intentions.” 

“ But in that case the cousin would n’t have fallen 
among us like a cannon-ball,” answered the notary. 

“That doesn’t prove an3^thing,” said Monsieur des 
Grassins ; “the old miser is alwa3’s making mysteries.” 

“ Des Grassins, my friend, I have invited the 3’oung 
man to dinner. You must go and ask Monsieur and 
Madame de Larsonniere and the du Hauto3's, with the 
beautiful demoiselle du Hautoy, of course. I hope she 
will be properly dressed ; that jealous mother of hers 
does make such a fright of her! Gentlemen, I trust 
that you will all do us the honor to come,” she added, 
stopping the procession to address the two Cruchots. 

“Here 3"Ou are at home, madame,” said the notary. 

After bowing to the three des Grassins, the three 
Cruchots returned home, appl3dng their provincial ge- 
nius for analysis to studying, under all its aspects, the 
great event of the evening, which undoubtedly changed 


EugSnie G-randet, 


71 


the respective positions of Grassinists and Cruchotines. 
The admirable common-sense which guided all the 
actions of these great machinators made each side 
feel the necessity of a momentary alliance against a 
common enemy. Must they not mutually hinder Euge- 
nie from loving her cousin, and the cousin from thinking 
of Eugenie? Could the Parisian resist the influence of 
treacherous insinuations, soft-spoken calumnies, slan- 
ders full of faint praise and artless denials, which 
should be made to circle incessantly about him and 
deceive him? 


72 


EugSnie Grandet. 


IV. 

When the four relations were left alone, Monsieur 
Grandet said to his nephew, — 

“We must go to bed. It is too late to talk about 
the matters which have brought you here ; to-morrow 
we will take a suitable moment. We breakfast at eight 
o’clock; at midday we eat a little fruit or a bit of 
bread, and drink a glass of white wine ; and we dine, 
like the Parisians, at five o’clock. That’s the order 
of the day. If yon like to go and see the town and 
the environs you are free to do so. You will ex- 
cuse me if m}^ occupations do not permit me to accom- 
pany you. You may perhaps hear people say that I 
am rich, — Monsieur Grandet this, Monsieur Grandet 
that. I let them talk ; their gossip does not hurt 
my credit. But I have not a penny; I work in my 
old age like an apprentice whose worldly goods are a 
bad plane and two good arms. Perhaps you’ll soon 
know yourself what a franc costs when you have got 
to sweat for it. Nanon, where are the candles? ” 

“ I trust, my nephew, that you will find all you 
want,” said Madame Grandet; “but if you should 
need anything else, you can call Nanon.” 


EugSnie Grandet, 


73 


“ My dear aunt, I shall need nothing ; I have, I be- 
lieve, brought everything with me. Peimit me to bid 
you good-night, and my young cousin also.” 

Charles took a lighted wax candle from Nanon’s 
hand, — an Anjou candle, very yellow in color, and so 
shopworn that it looked like tallow and deceived Mon- 
sieur Grandet, who, incapable of suspecting its presence 
under his roof, did not perceive this magnificence. 

“ I will show you the way,” he said. 

\w.^^Sstead of leaving the hall by the door which opened 
under the archway, Grandet ceremoniously went 
through the passage which divided the hall from the 
kitchen. A swing-door, furnished with a large oval 
pane of glass, shut this passage from the staircase, so 
as to fend off the cold air which rushed through it. 
But the north wind whistled none the less keenly in 
winter, and, in spite of the sand-bags at the bottom of 
the doors of the living-room, the temperature within 
could scarcely be kept at a proper height. Nanon went 
to bolt the outer door ; then she closed the hall and 
let loose a wolf-dog, whose bark was so strangled that 
he seemed to have laryngitis. This animal, noted for 
his ferocity, recognized no one but Nanon ; the two 
untutored children of the fields understood each other. 

When Charles saw the yellow, smoke-stained walls 
of the well of the staircase, where each worm-eaten 
step shook under the heavy foot-fall of his uncle, 


74 


EugSnie Grandet, 


his expectations began to sober more and more. He 
fancied himself in a hen-roost. His aunt and cousin, 
to whom he turned an inquiring look, were so used to 
the staircase that they did not guess the cause of his 
amazement, and took the glance for an expression of 
friendliness, which they answered by a smile that made 
him desperate. 

“ Why the devil did m}^ father send me to such a 
place ? ” he said to himself. 

When they reached the first landing he saw three 
doors painted in Etruscan red and without casings, — 
doors sunk in the dusty walls and provided with iron 
bars, which in fact were bolts, each ending with the 
pattern of a flame, as did both ends of the long sheath 
of the lock. The first door at the top of the staircase, 
which opened into a room directlj^ above the kitchen, 
was evidently walled up. In fact, the only entrance to 
that room was through Grandet’s bedchamber ; the room 
itself was his office. The single window which lighted 
it, on the side of the court, was protected by a lattice 
of strong iron bars. No one, not even Madame Gran- 
det, had permission to enter it. The old man chose 
to be alone, like an alchemist in his laboratory. There, 
no doubt, some hiding-place had been ingeniously con- 
structed ; there the title-deeds of property were stored ; 
there hung the scales with which to weigh the louis; 
there were devised, by night and secretly, the esti- 


Eugenie Grandet. 


lb 


mates, the profits, the receipts, so that business men, 
finding Grand et prepared at all points. Imagined that 
he got his cue from fairies or demons ; there, no doubt, 
while Nanon’s loud snoring shook the rafters, while the 
wolf-dog watched and yawned in the courtyard, while 
Madame and Mademoiselle Grandet were quietly sleep- 
ing, came the old cooper to cuddle, to con over, to 
caress and clutch and clasp his gold. The walls were 
thick, the screens sure. He alone had the key of this 
laboratory, where — so people declared — he studied the 
maps on which his fruit-trees were marked, and calcm 
lated his profits to a vine, and almost to a twig. 

/ The door of Eugenie’s chamber was opposite to the 
f walled-up entrance to this room. At the other end of 
the landing were the appartements of the married pair, 
which occupied the whole front of the house. Madame 
Grandet had a room next to that of Eugenie, which 
was entered through a glass door. The master’s cham- 
ber was separated from that of his wife by a partition, 
and from the mysterious strong-room by a thick wall. 
Pere Grandet lodged his nephew on the second floor, 
in the high mansarde attic which was above his own 
bedroom, so that he might hear him if the 3"oung man 
took it into his head to go and come. When Eugenie 
and her mother reached the middle of the landing they 
kissed each other for good-night ; then with a few words 
of adieu to Charles, cold upon the lips, but certainly 


re 


EugSnie GrandeU 


very warm in the heart of the 3'Oung girl, they with- 
drew into their own chambers. 

“ Here you are in your room, my nephew,*' said Pere 
Grandet as he opened the door. “ If you need to go 
out, call Nanon ; without her, beware ! the dog would 
eat you up without a word. Sleep well. Good-night. 
Ha ! why, they have made you a fire ! ” he cried. 

At this moment Nanon appeared with the warming 
pan. 

“ Here *s something more ! ” said Monsieur Grandet. 
“ Do you take m3" nephew for a lying-in woman? 
Carry off 3"our brazier, Nanon ! " 

“But, monsieur, the sheets are damp, and this gen- 
tleman is as delicate as a woman.” 

“Well, goon, as 3’ou *ve taken it into 3"our head,” 
said Grandet, pushing her bj" the shoulders; “but 
don’t set things on fire.” So sa3ing, the miser went 
down-stairs, grumbling indistinct sentences. 

Charles stood aghast in the midst of his trunks. Af- 
ter casting his eyes on the attic-walls covered with 
that 3'ellow paper sprinkled with bouquets so well 
known in dance-houses, on the fireplace of ribbed 
stone whose very look was chilling, on the chairs of 
3’ellow wood with varnished cane seats that seemed to 
have more than the usual four angles, on the open 
night-table capacious enough to hold a small sergeant- 
at-arms, on the meagre bit of rag-carpet beside the 


EugSnie Grandet, 


77 


bed, on the tester whose cloth valance shook as if, de- 
voured by moths, it was about to fall, he turned gravely 
to la Grande Nanon and said, — 

“ Look here ! my dear woman, just tell me, — am I 
in the house of Monsieur Grandet, formerly mayor of 
Saumur, and brother to Monsieur Grandet of Paris ? ” 
Yes, monsieur ; and a very good, a very kind, a 
very perfect gentleman. Shall I help you to unpack 
your trunks ? ” 

“ Faith] yes, if you will, my old trooper. Didn’t 
you serve in the marines of the Imperial Guard ? ” 

“ Ho, ho, ho ! ” laughed Nanon. “ What ’s that, — 
the marines of the guard? Is it salt? Does it go in 
the water ? ’* 

“ Here, get me my dressing-gown out of that valise ; 
there ’s the key.” 

Nanon was wonder-struck by the sight of a dressing- 
gown made of green silk, brocaded with gold flowers 
of an antique design. 

“ Are you going to put that on to go to bed with? ” 
she asked. 

“ Yes.” 

“ Holy Virgin ! what a beautiful altar-cloth it would 
make for the parish church ! My dear darling mon- 
sieur, give it to the church, and you ’U save your soul ; 
if you don’t, you’ll lose it. Oh, how nice you look 
in it 1 I must call mademoiselle to see you.” 


78 


Eugenie G-randet. 


“ Come, Nanon, if Nanon you are, hold your tongue ; 
let me go to bed. I ’ll arrange my things to-morrow. 
If my dressing-gown pleases you so much, you shall save 
your own soul. I ’m too good a Christian not to give 
it to you when I go away, and you can do what you 
like with it.” 

Nanon stood rooted to the ground, gazing at Charles 
and unable to put faith in his words. 

“Good night, Nanon.” 

“ What in the world have I come here for?” thought 
Charles as he went to sleep. “My father is not a 
fool ; my journey must have some object. Pshaw ! 
put off serious thought till the morrow, as some Greek 
idiot said.” 

“ Blessed Virgin ! how charming he is, my cousin ! ” 
Eugenie was saying, interrupting her prayers, which 
that night at least were never finished. 

Madame Grandet had no thoughts at all as she went 
to bed. She heard the miser walking up and down his 
room through the door of communication which was 
in the middle of the partition. Like all timid women, 
she had studied the character of her lord. Just as the 
petrel foresees the storm, she knew by imperceptible 
signs when an inward tempest shook her husband ; and 
at such times, to use an expression of her own, she 
“ feigned dead.” 

Grandet gazed at the door lined with sheet-iron 


EugSnie Grandet, 


79 


which he had lately put to his sanctum, and said to 
himself, — 

“ What a crazy idea of my brother to bequeath 
his son to me ! A fine legacy ! I have not fifty francs 
to give him. What are fifty francs to a dandy who 
looked at my barometer as if he meant to make fire- 
wood of it!” 

In thinking over the consequences of that legacy of 
anguish Grandet was perhaps more agitated than his 
brother had been at the moment of writing it. 

“ I shall have that golden robe,” thought Nanon, 
who went to sleep tricked out in her altar-cloth, dream- 
ing for the first time in her life of fiowers, embroidery, 
and damask, just as Eugenie was dreaming of love. 



"Vln the pure and monotonous life of young girls there 
comes a delicious hour when the sun sheds its rays 
into their soul, when the flowers express their thoughts, 
when the throbbings of the heart send upward to the 
brain their fertilizing warmth and melt all thoughts into 
a vague desire, — day of innocent melancholy and of 
dulcet joys I When babes begin to see, they smile ; 
when a young girl first perceives the sentiment of 
nature, she smiles as she smiled when an infant. If 
light is the first love of life, is not love a light to the 
heart? The moment to see within the veil of earthly 
things had come for Eugenie. 


80 


EugSnie Crrandet. 


An early riser, like all provincial girls, she was 
up betimes and said her prayers, and then began the 
business of dressing, — a business which henceforth 
was to have a meaning. First she brushed and 
smoothed her chestnut hair and twisted its heavy 
masses to the top of her head with the utmost care, 
preventing the loose tresses from stra3ing, and giv- 
ing to her head a symmetry which heightened the 
timid candor of her face ; for the simplicity of these 
accessories accorded well with the innocent sincerity 
of its lines. As she washed her hands again and 
again in the cold water which hardened and reddened 
the skin, she looked at her handsome round arms and 
asked herself what her cousin did to make his hands 
so softly white, his nails so delicately curved. She put 
on new stockings and her prettiest shoes. She laced 
her corset straight, without skipping a single eyelet. 
And then, wishing for the first time in her life to 
appear to advantage, she felt the jo}" of having a new 
gown, well made, which rendered her attractive. 

As she finished her toilet the clock of the parish 
church struck the hour ; to her astonishment, it was 
only seven. The desire of having plenty of time for 
dressing carefully had led her to get up too early. 
Ignorant of the art of retouching every curl and stud}’- 
ing every effect, Eugenie simply crossed her arms, sat 
fiown by the window, and looked at the court-yard, the 


EugSnie GrandeU 


81 


narrow garden, and the high terraced walls that over- 
topped it : a dismal, hedged-in prospect, yet not wholly 
devoid of those mysterious beauties which belong to 
solitary or uncultivated nature, f Near the kitchen was 
a well surrounded by a cur5^ with a pulley fastened 
to a bent iron rod clasped by a vine whose leaves 
were withered, reddened, and shrivelled by the sea- 
son. From thence the tortuous shoots straggled to 
the wall, clutched it, and ran the whole length of 
the house, ending near the wood-pile, where the logs 
were ranged with as much precision as the books in a 
library. The pavement of the court-yard showed the 
black stains produced in time by lichens, herbage, and 
the absence of all movement or friction. The thick 
walls wore a coating of green moss streaked with wav- 
ing brown lines, and the eight stone steps at the 
bottom of the court-yard which led up to the gate of 
the garden were disjointed and hidden beneath tall 
plants, like the tomb of a knight buried by his widow 
in the days of the Crusades. Above a foundation of 
moss-grown, crumbling stones was a trellis of rotten 
wood, half fallen from decay ; over them clambered 
and intertwined at will a mass of clustering creepers. 
On each side of the latticed gate stretched the crooked 
arms of two stunted apple-trees. Three parallel walks, 
gravelled and separated from each other by square 
beds, where the earth was held in by box-borders, made 


82 


EugSnie Grandet, 


the garden, which terminated, beneath a terrace of the 
old walls, in a group of lindens. At the farther end 
were raspberr3-bushes ; at the other, near the house, 
an immense walnut-tl^ee drooped its branches almost 
into the window of the miser’s sanctum. 

A clear day and the beautiful autumnal sun common 
to the banks of the Loire were beginning to melt the 
hoar-frost which the night had laid on these picturesque 
objects, on the walls, and on the plants which swathed 
the garden and the court-yard. Eugenie found a novel 
charm in the aspect of things latety so insignificant to 
her. A thousand confused thoughts came to birth in 
her mind and grew there, as the sunbeams grew with- 
out along the wall. She felt that impulse of delight, 
vague, inexplicable, which wraps the moral being as 
a cloud wraps the physical body. Her thoughts were 
all in keeping with the details of this strange landscape, 
and the harmonies of her heart blended with the har- 
monies of nature. When the sun reached an angle 
of the wall where the “ Venus-hair” of southern climes 
drooped its thick leaves, lit with the changing colors of 
a pigeon’s breast, celestial rays of hope illumined tha 
future to her eyes, and thenceforth she loved to gaze 
upon that piece of wall, on its pale flowers, its blue 
harebells, its wilting herbage, with which she mingled 
memories as tender as those of childhood. The noise 
made by each leaf as it fell from its twig in the void 


Euginie Grandet, 


83 


of that echoing court gave answer to the secret ques- 
tionings of the young girl, who could have stayed there 
jbe livelong day without perceiving the flight of time. 
Then came tumultuous heavings of the soul. She rose 
often, went to her glass, and looked at herself, as an 
author in good faith looks at his work to criticise it 
and blame it in his own mind. 

“I am not beautiful enough for him!” Such was 
Eugenie’s thought, — a humble thought, fertile in suf- 
fering. The poor girl did not do herself justice ; but 
modest}^, or rather fear, is among the first of love’s 
virtues. Eugenie belonged to the type of children with 
sturdy constitutions, such as we see among the lesser 
bourgeoisie, whose beauties always seem a little vulgar ; 
and yet, though she resembled the Venus of Milo, the 
lines of her figure were ennobled by the softer Christian 
sentiment which purifies womanhood and gives it a 
distinction unknown to the sculptors of antiquity. She 
had an enormous head, with the masculine yet delicate 
forehead of the Jupiter of Phidias, and gra3" eyes, to 
which her chaste life, penetrating fully into them, 
carried a flood of light.y/The features of her round 
face, former!}^ fresh and rosy, were at one time swollen 
b}^ the small-pox, which destro^’ed the velvet texture 
of the skin, though it kindly left no other traces, and 
her cheek was still so soft and delicate that her mother’s 
kiss made a momentary red mark upon it. Her nose 


84 


EugSnie Grandet, 


was somewhat too thick, but it harmonized well with 
the vermilion mouth, whose lips, creased in many lines, 
were full of love and kindness. The throat was ex- 
quisitely round. The bust, well curved and carefully 
covered, attracted the eye and inspired revery. It 
lacked, no doubt, the grace which a fitting dress can 
bestow ; but to a connoisseur the non-fiexibility of her 
figure had its own charm. Eugenie, tall and strongly 
made, had none of the prettiness which pleases the 
masses ; but she was beautiful with a beauty which 
the spirit recognizes, and none but artists truly love. 
A painter seeking here below for a type of Mary^s 
celestial purity, searching womankind for those proud 
modest eyes which Raphael divined, for those virgin 
lines, often due to chances of conception, which the 
modesty of Christian life alone can bestow or keep 
unchanged, — such a painter, in love with his ideal, 
would have found in the face of Eugenie the innate 
nobleness that is ignorant of itself ; he would have seen 
beneath the calmness of that brow a world of love ; he 
would have felt, in the shape of the eyes, in the fall 
of the eyelids, the presence of the nameless something 
that we call divine. Her features, the contour of her 
head, which no expression of pleasure had ever altered 
or wearied, were like the lines of the horizon softly 
traced in the far distance across the tranquil lakes. 
That calm and rosy countenance, margined with light 


EugSnie GrandeU 


85 


like a lovely full-blown flower, rested the mind, held 
the eye, and imparted ^e charm of the conscience that 
was there reflected, Eugenie was standing on the 
shore of life where young illusions flower, where daisies 
are gathered with delights erelong to be unknown ; 
and thus she said, looking at her image in the glass, 
unconscious as yet of love : “I am too ugly ; he will 
not notice me.” 

Then she opened the door of her chamber which led 
to the staircase, and stretched out her neck to listen 
for the household noises. “ He is not up,” she thought, 
hearing Nanon’s morning cough as the good soul went 
and came, sweeping out the halls, lighting her fire, 
chaining the dog, and speaking to the beasts in the 
stable. Eugenie at once went down and ran to Nanon, 
who was milking the cow. 

“Nanon, my good Nanon, make a little cream for 
my cousin’s breakfast.” 

“Why, mademoiselle, you should have thought of 
that yesterday,” said Nanon, bursting into a loud peal 
of laughter. “I can’t make cream. Your cousin is 
a darling, a darling ! oh, that he is ! You should have 
seen him in his dressing-gown, all silk and gold ! I 
saw him, I did ! He wears linen as fine as the surplice 
of monsieur le cur4.” 

“Nanon, please make us a galeUeP 

“ And who ’ll give me wood for the oven, and flout 


86 


EugSnie Grandet, 


and butter for the cakes ?” said Nanon, who in hei 
function of prime-minister to Grandet assumed at times 
enormous importance in the e3xs of Eugenie and her 
mother. “ Mustn’t rob the master to feast the cousin. 
You ask him for butter and flour and wood : he ’s your 
father, perhaps he ’ll give 3’ou some. See ! there he is 
now, coming to give out the provisions.” 

Eugenie escaped into the garden, quite frightened as 
she heard the staircase shaking under her father’s step. 
Alread}" she felt the effects of that virgin modesty 
and that special consciousness of happiness which lead 
us to fancy, not perhaps without reason, that our 
thoughts are graven on our foreheads and are open 
to the eyes of all. Perceiving for the first time the 
cold nakedness of her father’s house, the poor girl felt 
a sort of rage that she could not put it in harmon}^ with 
her cousin’s elegance. She felt the need of doing 
something for him, — what, she did not know. In- 
genuous and truthful, she followed her angelic nature 
without mistrusting her impressions or her feelings. 
The mere sight of her cousin had wakened within her the 
natural 3’earnings of a woman, — yearnings that were 
the more likely to develop ardently because, having 
reached her twenty-third j^ear, she was in the plenitude 
of her intelligence and her desires. For the first time 
in her life her heart was full of terror at the sight of her 
father ; in him she saw the master of her fate, and she 


Eugenie Cirandet. 


87 


fancied herself guilty of wrong-doing in hiding from his 
knowledge certain thoughts. She walked with hasty 
steps, surprised to breathe a purer air, to feel the sun's 
rays quickening her pulses, to absorb from their heat 
a moral warmth and a new life. As she turned over 
in her mind some stratagem by which to get the cake, 
a quarrel — an event as rare as the sight of swallows 
in winter — broke out between la Grande Nanon and 
Grandet. Armed with his ke^’S, the master had come 
to dole out provisions for the day’s consumption. 

“Is there any bread left from yesterday ?” he said 
to Nanon. 

“ Not a crumb, monsieur.” 

Grandet took a large round loaf, well floured and 
moulded in one of the flat baskets which they use for 
baking in Anjou, and was about to cut it, when Nanon 
said to him, — 

“We are five, to-day, monsieur.” 

“That’s true,” said Grandet, “but your loaves 
weigh six pounds ; there ’ll be some left. Besides, these 
young fellows from Paris don’t eat bread, you ’ll see.” 

“ Then they must QQ.tfrippe f ” said Nanon. 

Frippe is a word of the local lexicon of Anjou, 
and means any accompaniment of bread, from but- 
ter which is spread upon it, the commonest kind of 
frippe^ to peach preserve, the most distinguished of all 
the frippes ; those who in their childhood have licked 


88 


Eugenie Grandet. 


the frippe and left the bread, will comprehend the 
meaning of Nanon’s speech. 

“No,” answered Grandet, “ they eat neither bread 
nor frippe; they are something like marriageable girls.” 

After ordering the meals for the day with his usual 
parsimony, the goodman, having locked the closets 
containing the supplies, was about to go towards the 
fruit-garden, when Nanon stopped him to say, — 

“ Monsieur, give me a little flour and some butter, 
and I ’ll make a galette for the young ones.” 

“Are you going to pillage the house on account of 
my nephew ? ” 

“ I was n’t thinking any more of your nephew than 
I was of your dog, — not more than you think yourself ; 
for, look here, you ’ve only forked out six bits of sugar. 
I want eight.” 

“What’s all this, Nanon? I have never seen you 
like this before. What have you got in j’^our head? 
Are you the mistress here? You sha’n’t have more 
than six pieces of sugar.” 

“Well, then, how is your nephew to sweeten his 
coflee ? ” 

“ With two pieces ; I ’U go without myself.” 

“ Go without sugar at your age ! I’d rather buy you 
some out of my own pocket.” 

“ Mind your own business.” 

In spite of the recent fall in prices, sugar was stiU 


Eugenie Qrandet, 


89 


in Grandet’s eyes the most valuable of all the colonial 
products ; to him it was always six francs a pound. The 
necessit}’ of economizing it, acquired under the Empire, 
had grown to be the most inveterate of his habits. 
All women, even the greatest ninnies, know how to 
dodge and double to get their ends ; Nanon abandoned 
the sugar for the sake of getting the galette. 

“ Mademoiselle ! ” she called through the window, 
“do you want some galette?^* 

“No, no,” answered Eugenie. 

“ Come, Nanon,” said Grandet, hearing his daugh- 
ter’s voice, “see here.” He opened the cupboard 
where the flour was kept, gave her a cupful, and 
added a few ounces of butter to the piece he had 
already cut off*. 

“ I shall want wood for the oven,” said the implac- 
able Nanon. 

“Well, take what j^ou want,” he answered sadl}^; 

‘ ‘ but in that case you must make us a fruit- tart, and 
you ’ll cook the whole dinner in the oven. In that way 
you won’t need two flres.” 

“Goodness!” cried Nanon, “you needn’t tell me 
that.” 

Grandet cast a look that was wellnigh paternal upon 
his faithful deputy. 

“ Mademoiselle,” she cried, when his back was 
turned, “we shall have the galette^ 


90 


J^ugenie Grandet. 


Pere Grandet returned from the garden with the 
fruit and arranged a plateful on the kitchen-table. 

“Just see, monsieur,” said Nanon, “what pretty 
boots your nephew has. What leather ! wh}" it smells 
good! What does he clean it with, I wonder? Am 
I to put your egg-polish on it?” 

“Nanon, I think eggs would injure that kind of 
leather. Tell him you don’t know how to black mo- 
rocco ; yes, that ’s morocco. He will get you some- 
thing himself in Saumur to polish those boots with. I 
have heard that they put sugar into the blacking to 
make it shine.” 

“ They look good to eat,” said the cook, putting 
the boots to her nose. “Bless me! if they don’t 
smell like madame’s eau-de-cologne. Ah! how 
funny ! ” 

“ Funny ! ” said her master. “ Do 3'ou call it funny 
to put more money into boots than the man who stands 
in them is worth ? ” 

“ Monsieur,” she said, when Grandet returned the 
second time, after locking the fruit-garden, “ won’t you 
have the poUau-feu put on once or twice a week on 
account of your nephew?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Am I to go to the butcher’s? ” 

“ Certainly not. We will make the broth of fowls ; 
the farmers will bring them. I shall tell Cornoiller 


EugSnie Grandet. 91 

to shoot some crows ; they make the best soup in the 
world.” 

“ Is n’t it true, monsieur, that crows eat the dead?” 

“You are a fool, Nanon. They eat what they can 
get, like the rest of the world. Don’t we all live on the 
dead ? What are legacies ? ” 

Monsieur Grandet, having no further orders to 
give, drew out his watch, and seeing that he had 
half an hour to dispose of before breakfast, he took 
his hat, went and kissed his daughter, and said to her : 

“ Do you want to come for a walk in the fields, 
down by the Loire ^ I have something to do there.” 

Eugenie fetched her straw bonnet, lined with pink 
taffeta ; then the father and daughter went down the 
winding street to the shore, 

“Where are 3^ou going at this early hour?” said 
Cruchot, the notary", meeting them. 

“To see something,” answered Grandet, not duped 
by the matutinal appearance of his friend. 

When Pere Grandet went to “ see something,” the 
notary knew by experience there was something to be 
got by going with him ; so he went. 

“Come, Cruchot,” said Grandet, “you are one of 
mj^ friends. I ’ll show you what folly it is to plant 
poplar-trees on good ground.” 

“ Do 3"ou call the sixty thousand francs that 3"Ou 
pocketed for those that were in ^^our fields down by 


92 


EugSnie Grandet, 


the Loire, foil}"?” said Maitre Cruchot, opening his 
eyes with amazement. “What luck you have had! 
To cut down your trees at the very time they ran 
short of white-wood at Nantes, and to sell them at 
thirty francs ! ” 

Eugenie listened, without knowing that she ap- 
proached the most solemn moment of her whole life, 
and that the notary was about to bring down upon her 
head a paternal and supreme sentence. Grandet had 
now reached the magnificent fields which he owned on 
the banks of the Loire, where thirty workmen were 
employed in clearing away, filling up, and levelling the 
spots formerly occupied by the poplars. 

“ Maitre Cruchot, see how much ground this tree 
once took up! Jean,” he cried to a laborer, “ m-m- 
measure with your r-r-rule, b-both ways.” 

“ Four times eight feet,” said the man. 

“ Thirty-two feet lost,” said Grandet to Cruchot. 
“ I had three hundred poplars in this one line, is n’t that 
so? Well, then, three h-h-hundred times thir- thirty-two 
lost m-m-me five hundred in h-h-hay ; add twice as 
much for the side rows, — fifteen hundred ; the middle 
rows as much more. So we may c-c-call it a th-thou- 
sand b-b-bales of h-h-hay — .” 

“Very good,” said Cruchot, to help out his friend; 
“a thousand bales are worth about six hundred 


francs.” 


Eugenie Grandet, 


93 


“ Say t-t- twelve hundred, be-c-cause there ’s three or 
four hundred francs on the second crop. Well, then, 
c-c-calculate that t-twelve thousand francs a year for 
f-f-forty years with interest c-c-comes to — 

“ Sa}’ sixty thousand francs,*’ said the notary. 

I am willing ; c-c-comes t-t-to sixty th-th-thousand. 
Very good,” continued Grandet, without stuttering: 
“ two thousand poplars forty years old will only yield 
me fifty thousand francs. There *s a loss. I have 
found that myself,” said Grandet, getting on his high 
horse. “ Jean, fill up all the holes except those at the 
bank of the river ; there j^ou are to plant the poplars I 
have bought. Plant ’em there, and they ’ll get nourish- 
ment from the government,” he said, turning to Cru- 
chot and giving a slight motion to the wen on his nose, 
which expressed more than the most ironical of smiles. 

“ True enough ; poplars should only be planted on 
poor soil,” said Cruchot, amazed at Grandet’s calcu- 
lations. 

“ Y-y-yes, monsieur,” answered the old man satiri- 
cally. 

Eugenie, who was gazing at the sublime scenery of 
the Loire, and paying no attention to her father’s 
reckonings, presently turned an ear to the remarks of 
Cruchot when she heard him say, — 

“ So you have brought a son-in-law from Paris. All 
Saumur is talking about your nephew. I shall soon 


94 EugSnie Grandet, 

have the marriage-contract to draw up, hey! Pere 
Grandet? ” 

“ You g-g-got up very early to t-t-tell me that,” said 
Grandet, accompanying the remark with a motion of 
his wen. “ Well, old c-c-comra-ade. I’ll be frank, and 
t-t-tell you what you want t-t-to know. I would 
rather, do you see, f-f-ling my daughter into the Loire 
than g-g-give her to her c-c-cousin. You may t-t-tell 
that everywhere, — no, never mind ; let the world 
t-t-talk.” 

This answer dazzled and blinded the young girl with 
sudden light. The distant hopes upspringing in her 
heart bloomed suddenlj^, became real, tangible, like a 
cluster of flowers, and she saw them cut down and wilt- 
ing on the earth. Since the previous evening she had at- 
tached herself to Charles by all those links of happiness 
which bind soul to soul ; from henceforth suffering was to 
rivet them. Is it not the noble destiny of women to be 
more moved by the dark solemnities of grief than by the 
splendors of fortune ? How was it that fatherly feeling 
had died out of her father’s heart ? Of what crime had 
Charles been guilty? Mysterious questions ! Alread} 
her dawning love, a mystery so profound, was wrap- 
ping itself in m3"ster3\ She walked back trembling in 
all her limbs ; and when she reached the gloom3’ street, 
latel3" so jo3’Ous to her, she felt its sadness, she breathed 
she melancholy which time and events had printed there. 


Euginie Qrandet. 


95 


None of love’s lessons lacked. A few steps from their 
own door she went on before her father and waited at 
the threshold. But Grandet, who saw a newspaper in 
the notary’s hand, stopped short and asked, — 

“ How are the Funds?” 

“ You never listen to my advice, Grandet,” answered 
Cruchot. “Buy soon; you will still make twenty per 
cent in two years, besides getting an excellent rate of 
interest, — five thousand a year for eighty thousand 
francs fifty centimes.” 

“We’ll see about that,” answered Grandet, rubbing 
his chin. 

“ Good God ! ” exclaimed the notary. 

“Well, what? ” cried Grandet ; and at the same mo- 
ment Cruchot put the newspaper under his eyes and said : 

“ Read that ! ” 

“ Monsieur Grandet, one of the most respected merchants 
in Paris, blew his brains out yesterday, after making his 
usual appearance at the Bourse. He had sent his resignation 
to the president of the Chamber of Deputies, and had also 
resigned his functions as a judge of the commercial courts. 
The failures of Monsieur Boguin and Monsieur Souchet, his 
broker and his notary, had ruined him. The esteem felt for 
Monsieur Grandet and the credit he enjoyed were neverthe- 
less such that he might have obtained the necessary assist- 
ance from other business houses. It is much to be regretted 
that so honorable a man should have yielded to momentary 
despair,” etc. 


96 


EugSnie GrrandeU 


“ I knew it,” said the old wine-grower to the notary. 

The words sent a chill of horror through Maitre Cru- 
chot, who, notwithstanding his impassibility as a notary, 
felt the cold running down his spine as he thought that 
Grandet of Paris had possibly implored in vain the 
millions of Grandet of Saumur. 

“ And his son, so joyous 3’esterday — ” 

“ He knows nothing as yet,” answered Grandet, 
with the same composure. 

“Adieu! Monsieur Grandet,” said Cruchot, who 
now understood the state of the case, and went off 
to reassure Monsieur de Bonfons. 

On entering, Grandet found breakfast ready. Ma- 
dame Grandet, round whose neck Eugenie had flung her 
arms, kissing her with the quick effusion of feeling often 
caused b}' secret grief, was already seated in her chair 
on castors, knitting sleeves for the coming winter. 

“You can begin to eat,” said Nanon, coming down- 
stairs four steps at a time ; “ the young one is sleeping 
like a cherub. Is n’t he a darling with his eyes shut? 
I went in and I called him : no answer.” 

“Let him sleep,” said Grandet; “he’ll wake soon 
enough to hear ill- tidings.” 

“What is it?” asked Eugenie, putting into her 
coffee the two little bits of sugar weighing less than 
half an ounce which the old miser amused himself by 
cutting up in his leisure hours. Madame Grandet, 


EngSnie GrandeU 97 

who did not dare to put the question, gazed at hei 
husband. 

“ His father has blown his brains out.” 

“My uncle?” said Eugenie. 

“ Poor young man ! ” exclaimed Madame Grandet. 

“Poor indeed!” said Grandet; “he isn’t worth a 
sou ! ” 

“Eh I poor boy, and he ’s sleeping like the king of 
the world ! ” said Nanon in a gentle voice. 

Eugenie stopped eating. Her heart was wrung, as 
the young heart is wrung when pity for the suffering 
of one she loves overflows, for the first time, the whole 
being of a woman. The poor girl wept. 

“What are you crying about? You didn’t know 
your uncle,” said her father, giving her one of those 
hungry tigerish looks he doubtless threw upon his piles 
of gold. 

“But, monsieur,” said Nanon, “who wouldn’t feel 
pity for the poor young man, sleeping there like a 
wooden shoe, without knowing what’s coming?” 

“ I did n’t speak to you, Nanon. Hold your 
tongue I ” 

Eugenie learned at that moment that the woman 
who loves must be able to hide her feelings. She did 
not answer. 

“ You will say nothing to him about it, Ma’ame Gran- 
det, till I return,” said the old man. “ I have to go 

7 


98 


Euginie Grandet 


and straighten the line of my hedge along the high- 
road. I shall be back at noon, in time for the second 
breakfast, and then I will talk with my nephew about 
his affairs. As for you. Mademoiselle Eugenie, if it is 
for that dandy 3’ou are crying, that’s enough, child. 
He’s going off like a shot to the Indies. You will 
never see him again.” 

The father took his gloves from the brim of his hat, 
put them on with his usual composure, pushed them in 
place by shoving the fingers of both hands together, 
and went out. 

“Mamma, I am suffocating!” cried Eugenie when 
she was alone with her mother ; “I have never suffered 
like this. ” 

Madame Grandet, seeing that she turned pale, opened 
the window and let her breathe fresh air. 

“ I feel better ! ” said Eugenie after a moment. 

This nervous excitement in a nature hitherto, to all 
appearance, calm and cold, re-acted on Madame Gran- 
det ; she looked at her daughter with the sympathetic 
intuition with which mothers are gifted for the objects 
of their tenderness, and guessed all. In truth the 
life of the Hungarian sisters, bound together b\’ a 
freak of nature, could scarcely have been more intimate 
than that of Eugenie and her mother, — alwa^^s to- 
gether in the embrasure of that window, and sleeping 
together in the same atmosphere. 


EugSnie Grandet, 


99 


“My poor child!” said Madame Grandet, taking 
Eugenie’s head and laying it upon her bosom. 

At these words the young girl raised her head, ques- 
tioned her mother by a look, and seemed to search out 
her inmost thought. 

“ Why send him to the Indies?” she said. “If he 
is unhappy, ought he not to stay with us? Is he not 
our nearest relation?” 

“Yes, my child, it seems natural; but your father 
has his reasons : we must respect them.” 

The mother and daughter sat down in silence, the 
former upon her raised seat, the latter in her little arm- 
chair, and both took up their work. Swelling with 
gratitude for the full heart-understanding her mother 
had given her, Eugenie kissed the dear hand, saying, — 

“ How good you are, my kind mamma ! ” 

The words sent a glow of light into the motherly 
face, worn and blighted as it was by many sorrows. 

“You like him?” asked Eugenie. 

Madame Grandet onl}^ smiled in reply. Then, after a 
moment’s silence, she said in a low voice : “ Do you 
love him already ? That is wrong.” 

“ Wrong? ” said Eugenie. “ Why is it wrong ? You 
are pleased with him, Nanon is pleased with him ; why 
should he not please me? Come, mamma, let us set 
the table for his breakfast.” 

She threw down her work, and her mother did the 


100 


EugSnie Grandet, 


same, saying, “ Foolish child ! ” But she sanctioned 
the child’s folly by sharing it. Eugenie called 
Nanon. 

“ What do you want now, mademoiselle?” 

“ Nanon, can we have cream by midday?” 

“Ah! midday, to be sure you can,” answered the 
old servant. 

“ Well, let him have his coffee verj^ strong ; I heard 
Monsieur des Grassins say that they make the coffee 
very strong in Paris. Put in a great deal.” 

“ Where am I to get it? ” 

“ Buy some.” 

“ Suppose monsieur meets me?” 

“ He has gone to his fields.” 

“I’ll run, then. But Monsieur Fessard asked me 
yesterday if the Magi had come to stay with us when 
I bought the wax candle. All the town will know our 
goings-on.” 

“ If 3’our father finds it out,” said Madame Grandet, 
“ he is capable of beating us.” 

“Well, let him beat us; we will take his blows on 
our knees.” 

Madame Grandet for all answer raised her eyes to 
heaven. Nanon put on her hood and went off. Euge- 
nie got out some clean table-linen, and went to fetch 
a few bunches of grapes which she had amused herself 
by hanging on a string across the attic ; she walked 


EugSnie Grandet, 


101 


softly along the corridor, so as not to waken her cousin, 
and she could not help listening at the door to his quiet 
breathing. 

“ Sorrow is watching while he sleeps,” she thought. 

She took the freshest vine-leaves and arranged her 
dish of grapes as coquettishly as a practised house- 
keeper might have done, and placed it triumphantly on 
the table. She laid hands on the pears counted out by 
her father, and piled them in a pyramid mixed with 
leaves. She went and came, and skipped and ran. 
She would have liked to lay under contribution every- 
thing in her father’s house ; but the keys were in his 
pocket. Nanon came back with two fresh eggs. At 
sight of them Eugenie almost hugged her round the 
neck. 

“ The farmer from Lande had them in his basket. 
I asked him for them, and he gave them to me, tb'' 
darling, for nothing, as an attention!” 


102 


Jijugenie Grandet, 


V. 

After two hours’ thought and care, during which 
Eugenie jumped up twenty times from her work to see 
if the coifee were boiling, or to go and listen to the 
noise her cousin made in dressing, she succeeded in 
preparing a simple little breakfast, very inexpensive, 
but which, nevertheless, departed alarmingly from the 
inveterate customs of the house. The midday breakfast 
was always taken standing. Each took a slice of 
bread, a little fruit or some butter, and a glass of wine. 
As Eugenie looked at the table drawn up near the fire 
with an arm-chair placed before her cousin’s plate, at 
the two dishes of fruit, the egg-cup, the bottle of white 
wine, the bread, and the sugar heaped up in a saucer, 
she trembled in all her limbs at the mere thought of the 
look her father would give her if he should come in 
at that moment. She glanced often at the clock to 
see if her cousin could breakfast before the master’s 
return. 

“Don’t be troubled, Eugenie; if your father comes 
in, I will take it all upon myself,” said Madame 
Grandet. 


EugSnie Girandet. 


103 


Eugenie could not repress a tear. 

“ Oh, my good mother ! ” she cried, “ I have never 
loved you enough.” 

Charles, who had been tramping about his room for 
some time, singing to himself, now came down. Hap- 
pily, it was only eleven o’clock. The true Parisian ! he 
had put as much dandyism into his dress as if he were 
in the chateau of the noble lady then travelling in Scot- 
land. He came into the room with the smiling, cour- 
teous manner so becoming to youth, which made 
Eugenie’s heart beat with mournful joy. He had taken 
the destruction of his castles in Anjou as a joke, and 
came up to his aunt ga}’!}^ 

“ Have you slept well, dear aunt? and you, too, my 
cousin ? ” 

“Very well, monsieur; did you?” said Madame 
Grandet. 

“I? perfectly.” 

“ You must be hungry, cousin,” said Eugenie ; 
“will you take 3^our seat?” 

“I never breakfast before midday; I never get up 
till then. However, I fared so badly on the journey 
that I am glad to eat something at once. Besides — ” 
here he pulled out the prettiest watch Breguet ever 
made. “Dear me! I am early, it is only eleven 
o’clock ! ” 

“ Early?” said Madame Grandet. 


104 


EugSnie G-randet, 


“Yes; but I wanted to put my things in order. 
Well, I shall be glad to have something to eat, — any- 
thing, it does n’t matter what, a chicken, a partridge.” 

“ Holy Virgin ! ” exclaimed Nanon, overhearing the 
words. 

“A partridge !” whispered Eugenie to herself; she 
would gladly have given the whole of her little hoard 
for a partridge. 

“ Come and sit down,” said his aunt. 

The young dandy let himself drop into an easy-chair, 
just as a pretty woman falls gracefully upon a sofa. 
Eugenie and her mother took ordinary chairs and sat 
beside him, near the fire. 

“Do you always live here?” said Charles, thinking 
the room uglier by daylight than it had seemed the 
night before. 

“ Always,” answered Eugenie, looking at him, “ex- 
cept during the vintage. Then we go and help Nanon, 
and live at the Abbaye des Noyers.” 

“ Don’t 3^ou ever take walks? ” 

“ Sometimes on Sunday after vespers, when the 
weather is fine,” said Madame Grandet, “ we walk on 
the bridge, or we go and watch the haymakers.” 

“ Have 3'ou a theatre ? ” 

“ Go to the theatre ! ” exclaimed Madame Grandet, 
“see a play! Why, monsieur, don’t you know it is 
a mortal sin?” 


EugSnie Grandet. 


105 


“ See here, monsieur,” said Nanon, bringing in the 
eggs, “here are your chickens, — in the shell.” 

“Oh! fresh eggs,” said Charles, who, like all people 
accustomed to luxury, had alread}" forgotten about his 
partridge, “ that is delicious ; now, if you will give me 
the butter, my good girl.” 

“ Butter ! then you can’t have the galette** 

“ Nanon, bring the butter,” cried Eugenie. 

The young girl watched her cousin as he cut his 
sippets, with as much pleasure as a grisette takes in a 
melodrama where innocence and virtue triumph. Charles, 
brought up by a charming mother, improved and trained 
by a woman of fashion, had the elegant, dainty, fop- 
pish movements of a coxcomb. The compassionate 
sympathy and tenderness of a young girl possess a 
power that is actually magnetic ; so that Charles, find- 
ing himself the object of the attentions of his aunt and 
cousin, could not escape the infiuence of feelings which 
flowed towards him, as it were, and inundated him. He 
gave Eugenie a bright, caressing look full of kindness, 
— a look which seemed itself a smile. He perceived, 
as his eyes lingered upon her, the exquisite harmony 
of features in the pure face, the grace of her innocent 
attitude, the magic clearness of the eyes, where young 
love sparkled and desire shone unconsciously. 

“Ah! my dear cousin, if you were in full dress at 
the Opera, I assure you my aunt’s words would come 


106 


EugSnie Grandet. 


trae, — you would make the men commit the mortal 
sin of envy, and the women the sin of jealous3\’^ 

The compliment went to Eugenie’s heart and set it 
beating, though she did not understand its meaning. 

“ Oh ! cousin,” she said, “you are laughing at a poor 
little country girl.” 

“ If you knew me, my cousin, you would know that 
I abhor ridicule ; it withers the heart and jars upon all 
m}^ feelings.” Here he swallowed his buttered sippet 
very gracefully. “No, I reall}^ have not enough mind 
to make fun of others ; and doubtless it is a great 
defect. In Paris, when they want to disparage a man, 
they say : ‘ He has a good heart.’ The phrase means : 
‘ The poor fellow is as stupid as a rhinoceros.’ But as 
I am rich, and known to hit the bull’s-e^^e at thirty 
paces with any kind of pistol, and even in the open 
fields, ridicule respects me.” 

“ dear nephew, that bespeaks a good heart.” 

“You have a ver}^ pretty ring,” said Eugenie; “is 
there any harm in asking to see it?” 

Charles held out his hand after loosening the ring, 
and Eugenie blushed as she touched the pink nails of 
her cousin with the tips of her fingers. 

“ See, mamma, what beautiful workmanship.” 

“ My ! there ’s a lot of gold ! ” said Nanon, bringing 
in the coflTee. 

“ What is that?” exclaimed Charles, laughing, as he 


Eugenie GrrandeU 


107 


pointed to an oblong pot of brown earthenware, glazed 
on the inside, and edged with a fringe of ashes, from 
the bottom of which the coflfee-grounds were bubbling 
up and falling in the boiling liquid. 

“ It is boiled coffee,” said Nanon. 

“Ah! my dear aunt, I shall at least leave one 
beneficent trace of m3’ visit here. You are indeed 
behind the age I I must teach you to make good coffee 
in a Chaptal coffee-pot.” 

He tried to explain the process of a Chaptal coffee- 
pot. 

“Gracious! if there are so man3’ things as all that 
to do,” said Nanon, “ we may as well give up our lives 
to it. I shall never make coffee that way ; I know that ! 
Pray, who is to get the fodder for the cow while I make 
the coffee ? ” 

“ I will make it,” said Eugenie. 

“ Child ! ” said Madame Grandet, looking at her 
daughter. 

The word recalled to their minds the sorrow that was 
about to fall upon the unfortunate young man; the 
three women were silent, and looked at him with an air 
of commiseration that caught his attention. 

‘ ‘ Is anything the matter, my cousin ? ” he said. 

“Hush!” said Madame Grandet to Eugenie, who 
was about to answer; “you know, my daughter, that 
your father charged us not to speak to monsieur — ” 


108 


Euginie Grandet, 


“ Say Charles,” said young Grandet. 

‘ ‘ Ah ! you are called Charles ? What a beautiful 
name ! ” cried Eugenie. 

Presentiments of evil are almost always justified. 
At this moment Nanon, Madame Grandet, and Eugenie, 
who had all three been thinking with a shudder of the 
old man’s return, heard the knock whose echoes the}' 
knew but too well. 

“ There ’s papa ! ” said Eugenie. 

She removed the saucer filled with sugar, leaving 
a few pieces on the table-cloth ; Nanon carried off the 
egg-cup ; Madame Grandet sat up like a frightened 
hare. It was evidently a panic, which amazed Charles, 
who was wholly unable to understand it. 

‘ ‘ Why ! what is the matter ? ” he asked. 

“ My father has come,” answered Eugenie. 

“ Well, what of that? ” 

Monsieur Grandet entered the room, threw his keen 
eye upon the table, upon Charles, and saw the whole 
thing. 

“ Ha ! ha ! so you have been making a feast for your 
nephew ; very good, very good, very good indeed ! ” 
he said, without stuttering. ‘ ‘ When the cat ’s away, 
the mice will play.” 

“Feast!” thought Charles, incapable of suspecting 
or imagining the rules and customs of the household. 

“ Give me my glass, Nanon,” said the master. 


Euginie Grandet. 


109 


Eugenie brought the glass. Grandet drew a horn- 
handled knife with a big blade from his breeches’ 
pocket, cut a slice of bread, took a small bit of butter, 
spread it carefully on the bread, and ate it standing. 
At this moment Charles was sweetening his coffee. 
Pere Grandet saw the bits of sugar, looked at his wife, 
who turned pale, and made three steps forward ; he 
leaned down to the poor woman’s ear and said, — 

“ Where did you get all that sugar? ” 

“ Nanon fetched it from Fessard’s ; there was none.” 

It is impossible to picture the profound interest the 
three women took in this mute scene. Nanon had left 
her kitchen and stood looking into the room to see what 
would happen. Charles, having tasted his coffee, found 
it bitter and glanced about for the sugar, which Grandet 
had already put away. 

“What do you want? ” said his uncle. 

“ The sugar.” 

“Put in more milk,” answered the master of the 
house ; “your coffee will taste sweeter.” 

Eugenie took the saucer which Grandet had put 
away and placed it on the table, looking calmly at 
her father as she did so. Most assuredly, the Parisian 
woman who held a silken ladder with her feeble arms 
to facilitate the flight of her lover, showed no greater 
courage than Eugenie displaj’ed when she replaced the 
sugar upon the table. The lover rewarded his mistress 


no 


Eug4nie GrandeU 


when she proudly showed him her beautiful bruised arm, 
and bathed every swollen vein with tears and kisses 
till it was cured with happiness. Charles, on the other 
hand, never so much as knew the secret of the cruel 
agitation that shook and bruised the heart of his cousin, 
crushed as it was by the look of the old miser. 

“ You are not eating your breakfast, wife.” 

The poor helot came forward with a piteous look, cut 
herself a piece of bread, and took a pear. Eugenie 
boldly offered her father some grapes, saying, — 

“Taste my preserves, papa. My cousin, you will 
eat some, will you not? I went to get these pretty 
grapes expressly for you.” 

“If no one stops them, they will pillage Saumur for 
you, nephew. When you have finished, we will go 
into the garden ; I have something to tell you which 
can't be sweetened.” 

Eugenie and her mother cast a look on Charles whose 
meaning the young man could not mistake. 

“What is it you mean, uncle? Since the death of 
my poor mother ” — at these words his voice softened — 
“ no other sorrow can touch me.” 

“ My nephew, who knows by what afflictions God is 
pleased to try us ? ” said his aunt. 

“Ta, ta, ta, ta,” said Grandet, “ there's your non- 
sense beginning. I am sorry to see those white hands 
of yours, nephew;” and he showed the shoulder-of- 


EugSnie Grandet, 


111 


mutton fists which Nature had put at the end of his 
own arms. “There’s a pair of hands ihade to pick 
up silver pieces. You ’ve been brought up to put your 
feet in the kid out of which we make the purses we 
keep our money in. A bad look-out ! Very bad ! ” 

“What do you mean, uncle? I’ll be hanged if I 
understand a single word of what you are saying.” 

“ Come ! ” said Grandet. 

The miser closed the blade of his knife with a 
snap, drank the last of his wine, and opened the 
door. 

“ My cousin, take courage ! ” 

The tone of the j^oung girl struck terror to Charles’s 
heart, and he followed his terrible uncle, a prey to dis- 
quieting thoughts. Eugenie, her mother, and Nanon 
went into the kitchen, moved by irresistible curiosity 
to watch the two actors in the scene which was about 
to take place in the garden, where at first the uncle 
walked silently ahead of the nephew. Grandet was not 
at all troubled at having to tell Charles of the death of 
his father ; but he did feel a sort of compassion in 
knowing him to be without a penny, and he sought for 
some phrase or formula by which to soften the com- 
munication of that cruel truth. “You have lost your 
father ” seemed to him a mere nothing to say ; fathers 
die before their children. But “you are absolutely 
without means,” — all the misfortunes of life were 


112 


EugSnie Grandet 


summed up in those woi-ds! Grandet walked round 
the garden three times, the gravel crunching under 
his heavy step. 

In the crucial moments of life our minds fasten upon 
the locality where joj’s or sorrows overwhelm us. 
Charles noticed with minute attention the box-borders 
of the little garden, the yellow leaves as they fluttered 
down, the dilapidated walls, the gnarled fruit-trees, — 
picturesque details which were destined to remain for- 
ever in his memory, blending eternally, by the mnemon- 
ics that belong exclusively to the passions, with the 
recollections of this solemn hour. 

“ It is very flne weather, very warm,’* said Grandet, 
drawing a long breath. 

“Yes, uncle ; but why — ” 

“ Well, my lad,” answered his uncle, “ I have some 
bad news to give you. Your father is ill — ” 

“Then why am I here?” said Charles. “Nanon,” 
he cried, “ order post-horses ! I can get a carriage 
somewhere ? ” he added, turning to his uncle, who 
stood motionless. 

“ Horses and carriages are useless,” answered Gran- 
det, looking at Charles, who remained silent, his ej’es 
growing fixed. “ Yes, my poor boy, you guess the 
truth, — he is dead. But that ’s nothing ; there is 
something worse : he blew out his brains.” 

“ My father I ** 


EugSnie Grandet. 


113 


“Yes, but that’s not the worst; the newspapers 
are all talking about it. Here, read that.” 

Grandet, who had borrowed the fatal article from 
Cruchot, thrust the paper under his nephew’s eyes. 
The poor 3'Oung man, still a child, still at an age when 
feelings wear no mask, burst into tears. 

“ That ’s good ! ” thought Grandet ; “his eyes fright- 
ened me. He ’ll be all right if he weeps. — That is 
not the worst, my poor nephew,” he said aloud, not 
noticing whether Charles heard him, “ that is nothing ; 
you will get over it : but — ” 

“ Never, never ! My father ! Oh, my father ! ” 

“ He has ruined j-ou, you have n’t a penny.” 

“What does that matter? My father! Where is 
my father ? ” 

His sobs resounded horribly against those dreary 
walls and reverberated in the echoes. The three wo- 
men, filled with pity, wept also ; for tears are often 
as contagious as laughter. Charles, without listening 
further to his uncle, ran through the court and up the 
staircase to his chamber, where he threw himself across 
the bed and hid his face in the sheets, to weep in peace 
for his lost parents. 

“ The first burst must have its way,” said Grandet, 
entering the living-room, where Eugenie and her mother 
had hastily resumed their seats and were sewing with 
trembling hands, after wiping their e3"es. “ But that 

8 


114 


EugSnie Grandet, 


young man is good for nothing ; his head is more taken 
up with the dead than with his money.” 

Eugenie shuddered as she heard her father’s comment 
on the most sacred of all griefs. From that moment 
she began to judge him. Charles’s sobs, though muf- 
fled, still sounded through the sepulchral house ; and 
his deep groans, which seemed to come from the earth 
beneath, only ceased towards evening, after growing 
gradually feebler. 

“Poor young man ! ” said Madame Grandet. 

Fatal exclamation ! Pere Grandet looked at his 
wife, at Eugenie, and at the sugar-bowl. He recol- 
lected the extraordinary breakfast prepared for the 
unfortunate youth, and he took a position in the 
middle of the room. 

“ Listen to me,” he said, with his usual composure. 
“ I hope that you will not continue this extravagance, 
Madame Grandet. I don’t give you my monej’ to stuff 
that 3'Oung fellow with sugar.” 

“ My mother had nothing to do with it,” said Euge- 
nie ; “ it was I who — ” 

“ Is it because 3'ou are of age,” said Grandet, inter- 
rupting his daughter, “that 3’ou choose to contradict 
me? Remember, Eugenie — ” 

“Father, the son of jour brother ought to receive 
from us — ” 

“ Ta, ta, ta, ta!” exclaimed the cooper on four 


EugSnie Grandet. 


115 


chromatic tones ; “ the son of my brother this, my 
nephew that ! Charles is nothing at all to us ; he 
has n’t a farthing, his father has failed ; and when this 
dandy has cried his fill, oflT he goes from here. I won’t 
have him revolutionize my household.” 

“ What is ‘ failing,’ father? ” asked Eugenie. 

“ To fail,” answered her father, “ is to commit the 
most dishonorable action that can disgrace a man.” 

“It must be a great sin,” said Madame Grandet, 
“ and our brother may be damned.” 

“ There, there, don’t begin with your litanies ! ” said 
Grandet, shrugging his shoulders. “ To fail, Eugenie,” 
he resumed, “is to commit a theft which the law, 
unfortunately, takes under its protection. People have 
given their property to Guillaume Grandet trusting to 
his reputation for honor and integrity ; he has made 
away with it all, and left them nothing but their eyes to 
weep with. A highway robber is better than a bank- 
rupt : the one attacks you and you can defend yourself, 
he risks his own life ; but the other — in short, Charles 
is dishonored.” 

The words rang in the poor girl’s heart and weighed 
it down with their heavy meaning. Upright and deli- 
cate as a flower born in the depths of a forest, she 
knew nothing of the world’s maxims, of its deceitful 
arguments and specious sophisms ; she therefore 
believed the atrocious explanation which her father 


116 


EugSnie Grrandet, 


gave her designedly, concealing the distinction which 
exists between an involuntary failure and an intentional 
one. 

“Father, could you not have prevented such a mis- 
fortune?” 

“ My brother did not consult me. Besides, he owes 
four millions.” 

“What is a ‘million,’ father?” she asked, with the 
simplicity of a child which thinks it can find out at once 
all that it wants to know. 

“A million?” said Grandet, “ why, it is a million 
pieces of twenty sous each, and it takes five twenty- 
sous pieces to make five francs.” 

“ Dear me ! ” cried Eugenie, “ how could my uncle 
possibly have had four millions? Is there any one 
else in France who ever had so many millions ? ” Pere 
Grandet stroked his chin, smiled, and his wen seemed 
to dilate. “ But what will become of my cousin 
Charles?” 

“ He is going off to the West Indies by his father’s 
request, and he will try to make his fortune there.” 

“ Has he got the money to go with? ” 

“I shall pay for his journey as far as — yes, as 
far as Nantes.” 

Eugenie sprang into his arms. 

“Oh, father, how good 3’ou are ! ” 

She kissed him with a warmth that almost made 


EugSnie Grandet. 117 

Grandet ashamed of himself, for his conscience galled 
him a little. 

“Will it take much time to amass a million?” she 
asked. 

“ Look here ! ” said the old miser, “ you know what 
a napoleon is? Well, it takes fifty thousand napoleons 
to make a million.” 

“ Mamma, we must say a great many neuvaines for 
him.” 

“ I was thinking so,” said Madame Grandet. 

“That’s the way, always spending my money!” 
cried the father. “ Do you think there are francs on 
every bush ? ” 

At this moment a muffled cry, more distressing than 
all the others, echoed through the garrets and struck 
a chill to the hearts of Eugenie and her mother. 

“ Nanon, go upstairs and see that he doe^ not 
kill himself,” said Grandet. “Now, then,” he added, 
looking at his wife and daughter, who had turned pale 
at his words, “ no nonsense, you two! I must leave 
you ; I have got to see about the Dutchmen who are 
going away to-day. And then I must find Cruchot, 
and talk with him about all this.” 

He departed. As soon as he had shut the door 
Eugenie and her mother breathed more freely. Until 
this morning the young girl had never felt constrained 
in the presence of her father; but for the last fe^ 


118 EugSnie Grandet. 

hours every moment wrought a change in her feelings 
and ideas. 

“ Mamma, how many louis are there in a cask of 
wine ? ” 

“Your father sells his from a hundred to a hundred 
and fifty francs, sometimes two hundred, — at least, so 
I Ve heard say.” 

“ Then papa must be rich?” 

“Perhaps he is. But Monsieur Cruchot told me 
he bought Froidfond two years ago ; that may have 
pinched him.” 

Eugenie, not being able to understand the ques- 
tion of her father’s fortune, stopped short in her 
calculations. 

“ He did n’t even see me, the darling ! ” said Nanon, 
coming back from her errand. “He’s stretched out 
like a calf on his bed and crying like the Madeleine, 
and that’s a blessing! What’s the matter with the 
poor dear young man?” 

“ Let us go and console him, mamma ; if any one 
knocks, we can come down.” 

Madame Grandet was helpless against the sweet per- 
suasive tones of her daughter’s voice. Eugenie was 
sublime : she had become a woman. The two, with 
beating hearts, went up to Charles’s room. The door 
was open. The 3’oung man heard and saw nothing; 
plunged in grief, he only uttered inarticulate cries. 


Eugenie Grandet. 119 

“ How he loves his father ! ” said Eugenie in a low 
voice. 

In the utterance of those words it was impossible 
to mistake the hopes of a heart that, unknown to itself, 
had suddenty become passionate. Madame Grandet 
cast a mother’s look upon her daughter, and then 
whispered in her ear, — 

“ Take care, you will love him ! ” 

“ Love him ! ” answered Eugenie. “ Ah ! if you did 
but know what my father said to Monsieur Cruchot.” 

Charles turned over, and saw his aunt and cousin. 

“ I have lost my father, my poor father I If he had 
told me his secret troubles we might have worked to- 
gether to repair them. My God ! m}^ poor father ! I 
was so sure I should see him again that I think I kissed 
him quite coldly — ” 

Sobs cut short the words. 

“We will pray for him,” said Madame Grandet. 
“ Resign yourself to the will of God.” 

“ Cousin,” said Eugenie, “ take courage ! Your loss 
is irreparable ; therefore think only of saving your 
honor.” 

With the delicate instinct of a woman who intui- 
tively puts her mind into all things, even at the mo- 
ment when she offers consolation, Eugenie sought 
to cheat her cousin’s grief by turning his thoughts 
inward upon himself. 


120 


EugSnie Grandet. 


“Mj honor?” exclaimed the young man, tossing 
aside his hair with an impatient gesture as he sat up 
on his bed and crossed his arms. “Ah! that is true. 
My uncle said my father had failed.” He uttered a 
heart-rending cry, and hid his face in his hands. 
“Leave me, leave me, cousin! My God! my God! 
forgive my father, for he must have suffered sorely ! ” 

There was something terribly attractive in the sight 
of this young sorrow, sincere without reasoning or after- 
thought. It was a vii’gin grief which the simple hearts 
of Eugenie and her mother were fitted to comprehend, 
and they obeyed the sign Charles made them to leave 
him to himself. They went downstairs in silence and 
took their accustomed places by the window and sewed 
for nearly an hour without exchanging a word. Euge- 
nie had seen in the furtive glance she cast about the 
young man’s room — that girlish glance which sees all 
in the twinkling of an eye — the pretty trifles of his 
dressing-case, his scissors, his razors embossed with 
gold. This gleam of luxur}- across her cousin’s grief 
only made him the more interesting to her, possibly by 
way of contrast. Never before had so serious an event, 
so dramatic a sight, touched the imaginations of these 
two passive beings, hitherto sunk in the stillness and 
calm of solitude. 

“ Mamma,” said Eugenie, “ we must wear mourning 
for my uncle.” 


Eugenie Q-randeU 121 

“ Your father will decide that,” answered Madame 
Grandet. 

They relapsed into silence. Eugenie drew her stitches 
with a uniform motion which revealed to an observer 
the teeming thoughts of her meditation. The first 
desire of the girl’s heart was to share her cousin’if 
mourning. 


122 


EugSnie Grander 


VI. 

About four o’clock an abrupt knock at the door 
struck sharply on the heart of Madame Grandet. 

“ What can have happened to your father? ” she said 
to her daughter. 

Grandet entered joyously. After taking off his 
gloves, he rubbed his hands hard enough to take off 
their skin as well, if his epidermis had not been tanned 
and cured like Russia leather, — saving, of course, the 
perfume of larch-trees and incense. Presently his 
secret escaped him. 

“Wife,” he said, without stuttering, “I’ve trapped 
them all ! Our wine is sold ! The Dutch and the 
Belgians have gone. I walked about the market-place 
in front of their inn, pretending to be doing nothing. 
That Belgian fellow — you know who I mean — came up 
to me. The owners of all the good vineyards have kept 
back their vintages, intending to wait ; well, I did n’t 
hinder them. The Belgian was in despair ; I saw that. 
In a minute the bargain was made. He takes my 
vintage at two hundred francs the puncheon, half down. 
He paid me in gold ; the notes are drawn. Here are 


EugSnie GrandeL 123 

six louis for you. In three months wines will have 
fallen.” 

These words, uttered in a quiet tone of voice, were 
nevertheless so bitterly sarcastic that the inhabitants 
of Saumur, grouped at this moment in the market-place 
and overwhelmed by the news of the sale Grandet had 
just effected, would have shuddered had they heard 
them. Their panic would have brought the price of 
wines down fifty per cent at once. 

“Did you have a thousand puncheons this year, 
father?” 

“ Yes, little one.” 

That term applied to his daughter was the superlative 
expression of the old miser’s joy. 

“Then that makes two hundred thousand pieces of 
twenty sous each ? ” 

“Yes, Mademoiselle Grandet.” 

“ Then, father, you can easily help Charles.” 

The amazement, the anger, the stupefaction of Bel- 
shazzar when he saw the Mene- Tehel- Upharsin before 
his eyes is not to be compared with the cold rage of 
Grandet, who, having forgotten his nephew, now found 
him enshrined in the heart and calculations of his 
daughter. 

“ What's this? Ever since that dandy put foot in my 
house everything goes wrong ! You behave as if you 
had the right to buy sugar-plums and make feasts and 


124 


EugSnie Grandet, 


weddings. I won’t have that sort of thing. I hope 
I know my duty at my time of life ! I certainly sha’n’t 
take lessons from my daughter, or from anybody else. 
I shall do for m}^ nephew what it is proper to do, and 
you have no need to poke your nose into it. As for 
you, Eugenie,” he added, facing her, “ don’t speak of 
this again, or I ’ll send you to the Abbaye des Noyers 
with Nanon, see if I don’t ; and no later than to-morrow 
either, if you disobey me ! Where is that fellow, has 
he come down yet? ” 

“ No, my friend,” answered Madame Grandet. 

“ What is he doing then? ” 

“ He is weeping for his father,” said Eugenie. 

Grandet looked at his daughter without finding a 
word to say ; after all, he was a father. He made a 
couple of turns up and down the room, and then went 
hurriedly to his secret den to think over an investment 
he was meditating in the public Funds. The thinning 
out of his two thousand acres of forest land had yielded 
him six hundred thousand francs : putting this sum to 
that derived from the sale of his poplars and to his other 
gains for the last year and for the current year, he had 
amassed a total of nine hundred thousand francs, with- 
out counting the two hundred thousand he had got by 
the sale just concluded. The twenty per cent which 
Cruchot assured him he would gain in a short time from 
the Funds, then quoted at seventy, tempted him. He 


Eugenie Grandet. 


126 


figured out his calculation on the margin of the news- 
paper which gave the account of his brother’s death, 
all the while hearing the moans of his nephew, but with- 
out listening to them. Nanon came and knocked on 
the wall to summon him to dinner. On the last step 
of the staircase he was saying to himself as he came 
down, — 

“ I ’ll do it ; I shall get eight per cent interest. In 
two years I shall have fifteen hundred thousand francs, 
which I will then draw out in good gold. — Well, 
where ’s my nephew ? ” 

“He says he doesn’t want anything to eat,” an- 
swered Nanon ; “ that ’s not good for him.” 

“ So much saved,” retorted her master. 

“ That ’s so,” she said. 

“ Bah ! he won’t cry long. Hunger drives the wolves 
out of the woods.” 

The dinner was eaten in silence. 

“ My good friend,” said Madame Grandet, when the 
cloth was removed, “ we must put on mourning.” 

“Upon my word, Madame Grandet! what will you 
invent next to spend money on? Mourning is in the 
heart, and not in the clothes.” 

“ But mourning for a brother is indispensable ; and 
the Church commands us to — ” 

“ Buy your mourning out of your six louis. Give 
me a hat-band; that’s enough for me.” 


126 


Eugenie G-randet 


Eugenie raised her eyes to heaven without uttering 
a word. Her generous instincts, slumbering and long 
repressed but now suddenly and for the first time awak- 
ened, were galled at every turn. The evening passed 
to all appearance like a thousand other evenings of 
their monotonous life, yet it was certainly the most 
horrible. Eugenie sewed without raising her head, 
and did not use the workbox which Charles had de- 
spised the night before. Madame Grandet knitted her 
sleeves. Grandet twirled his thumbs for four hours, 
absorbed in calculations whose results were on the 
morrow to astonish Saumur. No one came to visit 
the family that day. The whole town was ringing with 
the news of the business trick just played by Grandet, 
the failure of his brother, and the arrival of his nephew. 
Obeying the desire to gossip over their mutual inter- 
ests, all the upper and middle class wine-growers in 
Saumur met at Monsieur des Grassins, where terrible 
imprecations were being fulminated against the ex- 
mayor. Nanon was spinning, and the whirr of her 
wheel was the only sound heard beneath the gray 
rafters of that silent hall. 

“We don’t waste our tongues,” she said, showing 
her teeth, as large and white as peeled almonds. 

“Nothing should be wasted,” answered Grandet, 
rousing himself from his revery. He saw a perspective 
of eight millions in three years, and he was sailing 


Eugenie Grandet, 


127 


along that sheet of gold. “ Let us go to bed. I will 
bid my nephew good-night for the rest of you, and see 
if he will take anything.” 

Madame Grandet remained on the landing of the 
first storey to hear the conversation that was about to 
take place between the goodman and his nephew. Eu- 
genie, bolder than her mother, went up two stairs. 

“Well, nephew, you are in trouble. Yes, weep, 
that ’s natural. A father is a father ; but we must bear 
our troubles patiently. I am a good uncle to you, re- 
member that. Come, take courage ! Will you have a 
little glass of wine ? ” (Wine costs nothing in Saumur, 
and they offer it as tea is offered in China.) “ Why ! ” 
added Grandet, “ 3’ou have got no light ! That ’s bad, 
very bad ; you ought to see what you are about,” and 
he walked to the chimney-piece. “What's this?” he 
cried. “ A wax candle ! How the devil did they filch 
a wax candle? The spendthrifts would tear down the 
ceilings of my house to boil the fellow’s eggs.” 

Hearing these words, mother and daughter slipped 
back into their rooms and burrowed in their beds, with 
the celerity of frightened mice getting back to their 
holes. 

“Madame Grandet, have you found a mine?” said 
the man, coming into the chamber of his wife. 

“ My friend, wait ; I am saying my prayers,” said 
the poor mother in a trembling voice. 


128 J^ugenie Q-randet, 

“ The devil take your good God ! ” growled Grandet 
in reply. 

Misers have no belief in a future life: the present 
is their all in all. This thought casts a terrible light 
upon our present epoch, in which, far more than at any 
former period, money swaj’s the laws and politics and 
morals. Institutions, books, men, and dogmas, all con- 
spire to undermine belief in a future life, — a belief upon 
which the social edifice has rested for eighteen hundred 
years. The grave, as a means of transition, is little 
feared in our day. The future, which once opened to us 
beyond the requiems, has now been imported into the 
present. To obtain per fas et nefas a terrestrial para- 
dise of luxury and earthlj^ enjoyment, to harden the 
heart and macerate the body for the sake of fleeting 
possessions, as the martyrs once suflered all things to 
reach eternal jo^^s, this is now the universal thought — 
a thought written everywhere, even in the very laws 
which ask of the legislator, “What do you pay?” in- 
stead of asking him, “What do you think?” When 
this doctrine has passed down from the bourgeoisie to 
the populace, where will this country be ? 

“Madame Grandet, have you done?” asked the old 
man. 

“ My friend, I am praying for you.” 

“Very good! Good-night; to-morrow morning we 
will have a talk I ” 


Eugenie Grrandet, 


129 


The poor woman went to sleep like a schoolboy who, 
not having learned his lessons, knows he will see his 
master’s angrj^ face on the morrow. At the moment 
when, filled with fear, she was drawing the sheet above 
her head that she might stifle hearing, Eugenie, in her 
night-gown and with naked feet, ran to her side and 
kissed her brow. 

“ Oh ! my good mother,” she said, “ to-morrow I will 
tell him it was I. ” 

“ No ; he would send you to Noyers. Leave me to 
manage it ; he cannot eat me.” 

“ Do you hear, mamma? ” 

“ What?” 

“ He is weeping still.” 

“Go to bed, my daughter; j^ou will take cold in 
your feet : the floor is damp.” 

Thus passed the solemn day which was destined to 
weigh upon the whole life of the rich and poor heiress, 
whose sleep was never again to be so calm, nor yet so 
pure, as it had been up to this moment. It often hap- 
pens that certain actions of human life seem, literally 
speaking, improbable, though actual. Is not this be- 
cause we constantly omit to turn the stream of psy- 
chologic light upon our impulsive determinations, and 
fail to explain the subtile reasons, mysteriously con- 
ceived in our minds, which impelled them? Perhaps 

9 


130 


EugSnie Grandet, 


Eugenie’s deep passion should be analyzed in its most 
delicate fibres ; for it became, scoffers might say, a mal- 
ady which infiuenced her whole existence. Many people 
prefer to deny results rather than estimate the force of 
ties and links and bonds, which secretly join one fact 
to another in the moral order. Here, therefore, Euge- 
nie’s past life will offer to observers of human nature 
an explanation of her naive want of refiection and the 
suddenness of the emotions which overfiowed her soul. 
The more tranquil her life had been, the more vivid was 
her womanly pity, the more simple-minded were the 
sentiments now developed in her soul. 

Made restless by the events of the day, she woke at 
intervals to listen to her cousin, thinking she heard the 
sighs which still echoed in her heart. Sometimes she 
saw him dying of his trouble, sometimes she dreamed 
that he fainted from hunger. Towards morning 
she was certain that she heard a startling cry. She 
dressed at once and ran, in the dawning light, with a 
swift foot to her cousin’s chamber, the door of which he 
had left open. The candle had burned down to the 
socket. Charles, overcome by nature, was sleeping, 
dressed and sitting in an armchair beside the bed, on 
which his head rested ; he dreamed as men dream on 
an empty stomach. Eugenie might weep at her ease ; 
she might admire the young and handsome face blotted 
with grief, the eyes swollen with weeping, that seemed, 


EugSnie Grandet. 


181 


sleeping as they were, to well forth tears. Charles felt 
sympathetically the young girl’s presence ; he opened 
his eyes and saw her pitying him. 

“Pardon me, my cousin,” he said, evidently not 
knowing the hour nor the place in which he found him- 
self. 

“There are hearts who hear you, cousin, and we 
thought you might need something. You should go to 
bed ; you tire yourself sitting thus.” 

“ That is true.” 

“Well, then, adieu ! ” 

She escaped, ashamed and happy at having gone 
there. Innocence alone can dare to be so bold. Once 
enlightened, virtue makes her calculations as well as 
vice. Eugenie, who had not trembled beside her cousin, 
could scarcely stand upon her legs when she regained 
her chamber. Her ignorant life had suddenly come to 
an end ; she reasoned, she rebuked herself with many 
reproaches. 

“ What will he think of me? He will think that I 
love him ! ” 

That was what she most wished him to think. An 
honest love has its own prescience, and knows that 
love begets love. What an event for this poor solitary 
girl thus to have entered the chamber of a young man ! 
Are there not thoughts and actions in the life of love 
which to certain souls bear the full meaning of the 


132 EugSnie GrandeU 

holiest espousals? An hour later she went to hei 
mother and dressed her as usual. Then they both 
came down and gat in their places before the window 
waiting for Grandet, with that cruel anxiety which, 
according to the individual character, freezes the heart 
or warms it, shrivels or dilates it, when a scene is 
feared, a punishment expected, — a feeling so natural 
that even domestic animals possess it, and whine at the 
slightest pain of punishment, though they make no 
outcry when they inadvertently hurt themselves. The 
goodman came down ; but he spoke to his wife with an 
absent manner, kissed Eugenie, and sat down to table 
without appearing to remember his threats of the night 
before. 

“ What has become of my nephew? The lad gives 
no trouble.” 

“ Monsieur, he is asleep,” answered Nanon. 

“ So much the better ; he won’t want a wax candle,” 
said Grandet in a jeering tone. 

This unusual clemency, this bitter gayety, struck Ma- 
dame Grandet with amazement, and she looked at her 
husband attentively. The goodman — here it may be 
well to explain that in Touraine, Anjou, Poitou, and 
Bretagne the word “goodman,” already used to desig- 
nate Grandet, is bestowed as often upon harsh and cruel 
men as upon those of kindly temperament, when either 
have reached a certain age ; the title means nothing 


EugSnie Grandet, 


133 


on the score of individual gentleness — the goodman 
took his hat and gloves, saying as he went out, — 

“ I am going to loiter about the market-place and 
find Cruchot.” 

“Eugenie, your father certainly has something on 
his mind.” 

Grandet, who was a poor sleeper, employed half his 
nights in the preliminary calculations which gave such 
astonishing accuracy to his views and observations and 
schemes, and secured to them the unfailing success at 
sight of which his townsmen stood amazed. All hu- 
man power is a compound of time and patience. Pow- 
erful beings will and wait. The life of a miser is the 
constant exercise of human power put to the service of 
self. It rests on two sentiments only, — self-love and 
self-interest; but self-interest being to a certain ex- 
tent compact and intelligent self-love, the visible sign 
of real superiority, it follows that self-love and self- 
interest are two parts of the same whole, — egotism. 
From this arises, perhaps, the excessive curiosity shown 
in the habits of a miser’s life whenever they are put 
before the world. Every nature holds by a thread to 
those beings who challenge all human sentiments by 
concentrating all in one passion. Where is the man 
without desire ? and what social desire can be satisfied 
without money ? 

Grandet unquestionably “had something on his 


134 


Eugenie GrandeU 


mind,” to use his wife’s expression. There was in him, 
as in all misers, a persistent craving to play a commer- 
cial game with other men and win their mone}" legally. 
To impose upon other people was to him a sign of 
power, a perpetual proof that he had won the right to 
despise those feeble beings who suffer themselves to be 
preyed upon in this world. Oh ! who has ever truly un- 
derstood the lamb lying peacefully at the feet of God? 
— touching emblem of all terrestrial victims, myth of 
their future, suffering and weakness glorified ! This 
lamb it is which the miser fattens, puts in his fold, 
slaughters, cooks, eats, and then despises. The pasture 
of misers is compounded of money and disdain. During 
the night Grandet’s ideas had taken another course, 
which was the reason of his sudden clemency. He had 
hatched a plot by which to trick the Parisians, to decoy 
and dupe and snare them, to drive them into a trap, 
and make them go and come and sweat and hope and 
turn pale, — a plot by which to amuse himself, the old 
provincial cooper, sitting there beneath his gloomy raft- 
ers, or passing up and down the rotten staircase of his 
house in Saumur. His nephew filled his mind. He 
wished to save the honor of his dead brother without 
the cost of a penny to the son or to himself. His own 
funds he was about to invest for three years ; he had 
therefore nothing further to do than to manage his 
property in Saumur. needed some nutriment for his 


EugSnie Grandet, 


135 


malicious activity, and he found it suddenly in his 
brother’s failure. Feeling nothing to squeeze between 
his own paws, he resolved to crush the Parisians in be- 
half of Charles, and to play the part of a good brother 
on the cheapest terms. The honor of the family 
counted for so little in this scheme that his good inten- 
tions might be likened to the interest a gambler takes 
in seeing a game well played in which he has no stake. 
The Cruchots were a necessary part of his plan ; but 
he would not seek them, — he resolved to make them 
come to him, and to lead up that very evening to 
a comedy whose plot he had just conceived, which 
should make him on the morrow an object of admira- 
tion to the whole town without its costing him a single 
penny. 

In her father’s absence Eugenie had the happiness 
of busying herself openly with her much-loved cousin, 
of spending upon him fearlessly the treasures of her 
pity, — woman’s sublime superiority, the sole she de- 
sires to have recognized, the sole she pardons man for 
letting her assume. Three or four times the young girl 
went to listen to her cousin’s breathing, to know if he 
were sleeping or awake ; then, when he had risen, she 
turned her thoughts to the cream, the eggs, the fruits, 
the plates, the glasses, — all that was a part of his 
breakfast became the object of some special care. At 
length she ran lightly up the old staircase to listen to 


136 


Euginie Crrandet. 

the noise her cousin made. Was he dressing? Did he 
still weep ? She reached the door. 

“ My cousin ! ” 

“Yes, cousin.*^ 

“ Will you breakfast downstairs, or in your room? ” 

“ Where you like.” 

“ How do you feel?” 

“ Dear cousin, I am ashamed of being hungry.” 

This conversation, held through the closed door, was 
like an episode in a poem to Eugenie. 

“ Well, then, we will bring your breakfast to your 
own room, so as not to annoy my father.” 

She ran to the kitchen with the swiftness and light- 
ness of a bird. 

“ Nanon, go and do his room ! ” 

That staircase, so often traversed, which echoed to 
the slightest noise, now lost its decaying aspect in the 
eyes of Eugenie. It grew luminous ; it had a voice and 
spoke to her ; it was young like herself, — young like 
the love it was now serving. Her mother, her kind, 
indulgent mother, lent herself to the caprices of the 
child’s love, and after the room was put in order, both 
went to sit with the unhappy youth and keep him com- 
pany. Does not Christian charity make consolation a 
duty ? The two women drew a goodly number of little 
sophistries from their religion wherewith to justify 
their conduct. Charles was made the object of the 


EugSnie G-randeU 


137 


tenderest and most loving care. His saddened heart 
felt the sweetness of the gentle friendship, the exquisite 
s^’mpathy which these two souls, crushed under perpet- 
ual restraint, knew so well how to display when, for 
an instant, they were left unfettered in the regions of 
suffering, their natural sphere. 

Claiming the right of relationship, Eugenie began to 
fold the linen and put in order the toilet articles which 
Charles had brought ; thus she could marvel at her ease 
over each luxurious bauble and the various knick- 
knacks of silver or chased gold, which she held long in 
her hand under a pretext of examining them. Charles 
could not see without emotion the generous interest his 
aunt and cousin felt in him ; he knew society in Paris 
well enough to feel assured that, placed as he now was, 
he would find all hearts indifferent or cold. Eugenie 
thus appeared to him in the splendor of a special 
beauty, and from thenceforth he admired the innocence 
of life and manners which the previous evening he 
had been inclined to ridicule. So when Eugenie took 
from Nanon the bowl of coffee and cream, and began 
to pour it out for her cousin with the simplicity of 
real feeling, giving him a kindly glance, the eyes of 
the Parisian filled with tears ; he took her hand and 
kissed it. 

“ What troubles you ?” she said. 

“ Oh ! these are tears of gratitude,” he answered. 


138 EugSnie Grandet. 

Eugenie turned abruptly to the chimney-piece to take 
the candlesticks. 

“Here, Nanon, carry them away ! ” she said. 

When she looked again towards her cousin she was 
still blushing, but her looks could at least deceive, and 
did not betray the excess of jo^^ which inundated her 
heart ; yet the eyes of both expressed the same senti- 
ment as their souls flowed together in one thought, — the 
future was theirs. This soft emotion was all the more 
precious to Charles in the midst of his heavj^ giief be- 
cause it was wholl}^ unexpected. The sound of the 
knocker recalled the women to their usual station. 
Happily they were able to run downstairs with sufficient 
rapidity to be seated at their work when Grandet en- 
tered ; had he met them under the archway it would 
have been enough to rouse his suspicions. After 
breakfast, which the goodman took standing, the 
keeper from Froidfrond, to whom the promised in- 
demnity had never yet been paid, made his appear- 
ance, bearing a hare and some partridges shot in the 
park, with eels and two pike sent as tribute by the 
millers. 

“Ha, ha! poor Cornoiller; here he comes, like fish 
in Lent. Is all that fit to eat ? ’* 

“Yes, my dear, generous master ; it has been killed 
two days.” 

“Conje, Nanon, bestir yourself,” said Grandet; 


EugSnie Grandet, 139 

“ take these things, they ’ll do for dinner. I have 
invited the two Cruchots.” 

Nanon opened her eyes, stupid with amazement, and 
looked at everybody in the room. 

“ Well ! ” she said, “ and how am I to get the lard 
and the spices?” 

“ Wife,” said Grandet, “ give Nanon six francs, and 
remind me to get some of the good wine out of the 
cellar.” 

“Well, then. Monsieur Grandet,” said the keeper, 
who had come prepared with an harangue for the pur- 
pose of settling the question of the indemnity, “ Mon- 
sieur Grandet — ” 

“ Ta, ta, ta, ta ! ” said Grandet ; “I know what j^ou 
want to say. You are a good fellow ; we will see 
about it to-morrow, I ’m too busy to-da}". Wife, 
give him five francs,” he added to Madame Grandet as 
he decamped. 

The poor woman was only too happy to buy peace at 
the cost of eleven francs. She knew that Grandet 
would let her alone for a fortnight after he had thus 
taken back, franc by franc, the money he had given 
her. 

“ Here, Cornoiller,” she said, slipping ten francs in- 
to the man’s hand, “ some da}^ we will reward yout 
services.” 

Cornoiller could say nothing, so he went away. 


140 


EugSnie Grandet. 


“ Madame,” said Nanon, who had put on her black 
coif and taken her basket, “ I want only three 
francs. You keep the rest ; it ’ll go fast enough some- 
how.” 

“ Have a good dinner, Nanon ; my cousin will come 
down,” said Eugenie. 

“ Something very extraordinary is going on, I am 
certain of it,” said Madame Grandet. “ This is only 
the third time since our marriage that your father has 
given a dinner.” 

About four o’clock, just as Eugenie and her mother 
had finished setting the table for six persons, and after 
the master of the house had brought up a few bottles of 
the exquisite wine which provincials cherish with true 
afifection, Charles came down into the hall. The young 
fellow was pale ; his gestures, the expression of his face, 
his glance, and the tones of his voice, all had a sadness 
which was full of grace. He was not pretending grief, 
he truly suffered ; and the veil of pain cast over his 
features gave him an interesting air dear to the heart of 
women. Eugenie loved him the more for it. Perhaps 
she felt that sorrow drew him nearer to her. Charles 
was no longer the rich and distinguished 3"oung man 
placed in a sphere far above her, but a relation plunged 
into frightful miser}’. Misery begets equality. Women 
have this in common with the angels, — suflTering 


Euginie Grandet, 


141 


humanity belongs to them. Charles and Eugenie un- 
derstood each other and spoke only with their eyes ; 
for the poor fallen dandy, orphaned and impoverished, 
sat apart in a corner of the room, and was proudly calm 
and silent. Yet, from time to time, the gentle and ca- 
ressing glance of the young girl shone upon him and 
constrained him away from his sad thoughts, drawing 
him with her into the fields of hope and of futurity, 
where she loved to hold him at her side. 


142 


Mugenie GrandeU 


VIL 

At this moment the town of Saumur was more ex- 
cited about the dinner given by Grandet to the Cruchots 
than it had been the night before at the sale of his 
vintage, though that constituted a crime of high-treason 
against the whole wine-growing community. If the 
politic old miser had given his dinner from the same 
idea that cost the dog of Alcibiades his tail, he might 
perhaps have been called a great man ; but the fact is, 
considering himself superior to a community which he 
could trick on all occasions, he paid very little heed to 
what Saumur might say. 

The des Grassins soon learned the facts of the failure 
and the violent death of Guillaume Grandet, and the}" 
determined to go to their client’s house that very even- 
ing to commiserate his misfortune and show him some 
marks of friendship, with a view of ascertaining the 
motives which had led him to invite the Cruchots to 
dinner. At precisely five o’clock Monsieur C. de Bon- 
fons and his uncle the notary arrived in their Sunday 
clothes. The party sat down to table and began to 


EugSnie Grandet, 


143 


dine with good appetites. Grandet was grave, Charles 
silent, Eugenie dumb, and Madame Grandet did not 
say more than usual ; so that the dinner was, very prop- 
erl3% a repast of condolence. When they rose from 
table Charles said to his aunt and uncle, — 

“Will you permit me to retire? I am obliged to 
undertake a long and painful correspondence.” 

“ Certainlj^, nephew.” 

As soon as the goodman was certain that Charles 
could hear nothing and was probably deep in his letter- 
writing, he said, with a dissimulating glance at his 
wife, — 

“ Madame Grandet, what we have to talk about will 
be Latin to you ; it is half-past seven ; you can go and 
attend to your household accounts. Good-night, my 
daughter.” 

He kissed Eugenie, and the two women departed. 
A scene now took place in which Pere Grandet brought 
to bear, more than at any other moment of his life, the 
shrewd dexterity he had acquired in his intercourse 
with men, and which had won him from those whose 
flesh he sometimes bit too sharply the nickname of “ the 
old dog.” If the mayor of Saumur had carried his 
ambition higher still, if fortunate circumstances, draw- 
ing him towards the higher social spheres, had sent him 
into congresses where the affairs of nations were dis- 
cussed, and had he there employed the genius with 


144 


EugSnie Grandet, 


which his personal interests had endowed him, he 
would undoubtedly have proved nobly useful to his na- 
tive land. Yet it is perhaps equally certain that outside 
of Saumur the goodman would have cut a very sorry 
figure. Possibly there are minds like certain animals 
which cease to breed when transplanted from the 
climates in which they are born. 

“ M-m-mon-sieur le p-p-president, you said t-t-that 
b-b-bankruptcy — ” 

The stutter which for years the old miser had as- 
sumed when it suited him, and which, together with 
the deafness of which he sometimes complained in rainy 
weather, was thought in Saumur to be a natural defect, 
became at this crisis so wearisome to the two Cruchots 
that while they listened they unconsciously made faces 
and moved their lips, as if pronouncing the words over 
which he was hesitating and stuttering at will. Here 
it may be well to give the history of this impediment 
to the speech and hearing of Monsieur Grandet. No 
one in Anjou heard better, or could pronounce more 
crisply the French language (with an Angevin accent) 
than the wily old cooper. Some years earlier, in spite 
of his shrewdness, he had been taken in by an Israelite, 
who in the course of the discussion held his hand 
behind his ear to catch sounds, and mangled his mean- 
ing so thoroughly in trying to utter his words that 
Grandet fell a victim to his humanity and was com 


EugSnie GrandeL 


145 


pelled to prompt the wily Jew with the words and 
ideas he seemed to seek, to complete himself the argu- 
ments of the said Jew, to say what that cursed Jew 
ought to have said for himself; in short, to be the Jew 
instead of being Grandet. When the cooper came out 
of this curious encounter he had concluded the only 
bargain of which in the course of a long commercial 
life he ever had occasion to complain. But if he lost 
at the time pecuniarily, he gained morally a valuable 
lesson ; later, he gathered its fruits. Indeed, the 
goodman ended by blessing that Jew for having taught 
him the art of irritating his commercial antagonist 
and leading him to forget his own thoughts in his 
impatience to suggest those over which his tormentor 
was stuttering. No affair had ever needed the as- 
sistance of deafness, impediments of speech, and 
all the incomprehensible circumlocutions with which 
Grandet enveloped his ideas, as much as the affair 
now in hand. In the first place, he did not mean 
to shoulder the responsibility of his own scheme ; 
in the next, he was determined to remain master of 
the conversation and to leave his real intentions in 
doubt. 

“ M-m-monsieur de B-B-Bonfons,” — for the second 
time in three years Grandet called the Cruchot nephew 
Monsieur de Bonfons ; the president felt he might 
consider himself the artful old fellow’s son-in-law, — 

10 


146 


Eugenie Grandet. 


“ you-ou said tli-th-that b“b-bankrnptc\" c-c-could, lu 
some c-c-cases, b-be p-p-prevented b-b-by — 

“ B}" the courts of commerce themselves. Tt is done 
constantl3%” said Monsieur C. de Bonfons, bestriding 
Grandet’s meaning, or thinking he guessed it, and kindly 
wishing to help him out with it. “ Listen.” 

“ Y-yes,” said Grandet humbty, with the mischievous 
expression of a hoy who is inwardl}" laughing at his 
teacher while he pays him the greatest attention. 

“ When a man so respected and important as, for 
example, 3’our late brother — ” 

“ M-my b-b-brother, 3"es.” 

“ — is threatened with insolvenc\’^ — ” 

“ The}" c-c-call it in-ins-s-solvency ? ” 

“Yes; when his failure is imminent, the court of 
commerce, to which he is amenable (please follow me 
attentivel}"), has the power, b}^ a decree, to appoint 
a receiver. Liquidation, you understand, is not the 
same as failure. When a man fails, he is dishonored ; 
but when he merel}" liquidates, he remains an honest 
man.” 

“ T-t-that ’s very d-d-dilferent, if it d-does n’t c-c-cost 
m-m-more,” said Grandet. 

“ But a liquidation can be managed without having 
recourse to the courts at all. For,” said the president, 
sniffing a pinch of snuff, ‘ ‘ don’t you know how failures 
are declared ? ” 


EugSnie Grandet. 147 

“ N-n-no, I n-n-never t-t-thought,’’ answered Gran- 
det. 

“In the first place,” resumed the magistrate, “by 
filing the schedule in the record office of the court, 
which the merchant may do himself, or his representa- 
tive for him with a power of attorne}^ duly certified. In 
the second place, the failure ma}^ be declared under 
compulsion from the creditors. Now if the merchant 
does not file his schedule, and if no creditor appears 
before the courts to obtain a decree of insolvency 
against the merchant, what happens?” 

“ W-w-what h-h-happens ? ” 

“ Why, the family of the deceased, his representa- 
tives, his heirs, or the merchant himself, if he is not 
dead, or his friends if he is only hiding, liquidate his 
business. Perhaps you would like to liquidate your 
brother’s affairs ? ” 

“ Ah ! Grandet,” said the notary, “ that would be 
the right thing to do. There is honor down here in the 
provinces. If you save your name — for it is your 
name — you will be a man — ” 

“ A noble man ! ” cried the president, interrupting 
his uncle. 

“ Certainly,” answered the old man, “ my b-b-broth- 
ePs name was G-G-Grandet, like m-m-mine. Th-that ’s 
c-c-certain; I d-d-don’t d-d-deny it. And th-th-this 
1-1-liquidation might be, in m-m-many ways, v-v-veiy 


148 


EugSnie Grandet, 


advan-t-t-tageous t-t-to the interests of m-m-my 
n-n-nephew, whom I 1-1-love. But I must consider. I 
don’t k-k-know the t-t-tricks of P-P-Paris. I b-h-belong 
to Sau-m-mur, d-d-don’ t you see ? M-m-my vines, my 
d-d-drains — in short, I’ve my own b-b-business. I 
never g-g-give n-n-notes. What are n-n-notes ? I t-t-take 
a good m-m-man}", but I have never s-s-signed one. 
1 d-d-don’ t understand such things. I have h-h-heard 
say that n-n-notes c-c-can be b-b-bought up.” 

“Of course,” said the president. “Notes can be 
bought in the market, less so much per cent. Don’t 
you understand?” 

Grandet made an ear- trumpet of his hand, and the 
president repeated his words. 

“ Well, then,” replied the old man, “ there *s s-s-some- 
thing to be g-g-got out of it ? I k-know n-nothing at 
my age about such th-th-things. I 1-1-live here and 
1-1-look after the v-v-vines. The vines g-g-grow, and 
it ’s the w-w-wine that p-p-pays. L-l-look after the 
v-v-vintage, t-t-that ’s my r-r-rule. My c-c-chief inter- 
ests are at Froidfond. I c-c-can’t 1-1-leave my h-h-house 
to m-m-muddle myself with a d-d-devilish b-b-business 
I kn-know n-n-nothing about. You say I ought to 
1-1-liquidate my b-b-brother’s af-f* fairs, to p-p-prevent 
the f-f-failure. I c-c-can’t be in two p-p-places at 
once, unless I were a little b-b-bird, and — ” 

“ I understand,” cried the notary. “Well, my old 


EugSnie Grrandet, 


149 


friend, you have friends, old friends, capable of devot' 
ing themselves to your interests.’^ 

“All right!” thought Grandet, “make haste and 
come to the point ! ” 

“ Suppose one of them went to Paris and saw your 
brother Guillaume’s chief creditor and said to him — ” 

“ One m-m-moment,” interrupted the goodman, 
“said wh-wh-what? Something 1-1-like th- this. Mon- 
sieur Gr-Grandet of Saumur this, Monsieur Grandet of 
Saumur that. He 1-1-loves his b-b-brother, he loves 
his n-nephew. Grandet is a g g-good uncle ; he 
m-m-means well. He has sold his v-v-vintage. D-d-don’t 
declare a f-f-failure ; c-c-call a meeting ; 1-Hiquidate ; 
and then Gr-Gr-Grandet will see what he c-c-can do. 
B-b-better liquidate than 1-let the 1-1-law st-st-stick its 
n-n-nose in. Hein? isn’t it so?” 

“ Exactly so,” said the president. 

“ B-because, don’t you see. Monsieur de B-Bonfons, 
a man must 1-Hook b-b-before he 1-leaps. If you 
c-c-can’t, you c-c-can’t. M-m-must know all about the 
m-m-matter, all the resources and the debts, if you 
d-d-don’t want to be r-r-ruined. Hein ? is n’t it so ? ” 

“ Certainl}^” said the president. “I’m of opinion 
that in a few months the debts might be bought up 
for a certain sum, and then paid in full by an agree- 
ment. Ha ! ha ! you can coax a dog a long way if you 
show him a bit of lard. If there has been no declara* 


150 


EugSnie GrrandeU 


tion of failure, and you hold a lien on the debts, 3^ou 
come out of the business as white as the driven snow.” 

“ Sn-n-now,” said Grandet, putting his hand to his 
ear, “ wh-wh-what about s-now?” 

“ But,” cried the president, “ do pray attend to what 
I am saying.” 

“ I am at-t-tending.” 

“ A note is merchandise, — an article of barter which 
rises and falls in price. That is a deduction from 
Jeremy Bentham’s theory about usury. That writer 
has proved that the prejudice which condemned usurers 
to reprobation was mere foll}^” 

“ Whew ! ” ejaculated the goodman. 

“ Allowing that money, according to Bentham, is 
an article of merchandise, and that whatever represents 
money is equally merchandise,” resumed the president ; 
“ allowing also that it is notorious that the commercial 
note, bearing this or that signature, is liable to the 
fluctuation of all commercial values, rises or falls in the 
market, is dear at one moment, and is worth nothing 
at another, the courts decide — ah ! how stupid I am, 
I beg your pardon — I am inclined to think 3"ou could 
bu3" up your brother’s debts for twent3^-flve per cent.” 

“ D-d-did you c-c-call him Je-Je-Jerem3’^ B-Ben? ” 

“ Bentham, an Englishman.” 

“ That’s a Jeremy who might save us a lot of lamen* 
tations in business,” said the notary, laughing. 


EugSnie Crrandet, 


151 


“ Those Englishmen s-sometimes t-t-talk sense,” said 
Grandet “ So, ac-c-cording to Ben-Bentham, if my 
b-b-brother*s n-notes are worth n-n-nothing ; if Je-Je 
— I’m c-c-correct, am I not? That seems c-c-clear 
to my m-m-mind — the c-c-creditors would be — No, 
would not be ; I understand.” 

“ Let me explain it all,” said the president. “ Legal- 
ly’’, if you acquire a title to all the debts of the Maison 
Grandet, your brother or his heirs will owe nothing to 
any one. Very good.” 

Very g good,” repeated Grandet. 

“In equity, if your brother’s notes are negotiated — 
negotiated, do you clearly understand the term? — 
negotiated in the market at a reduction of so much 
per cent in value, and if one of your friends happening 
to be present should buy them in, the creditors having 
sold them of their own free-will without constraint, the 
estate of the late Grandet is honorably released.” 

“That’s t-true; b-b-business is b-business,” said 
the cooper. “ B-b-but, st-still, you know, it is d-d-dif- 
ficult. I h-have n-no m-m -money and n-no t-t-time.” 

“ Yes, but you need not undertake it. I am quite 
ready to go to Paris (you may pay my expenses, they 
will only be a trifle) . I will see the creditors and talk 
with them and get an extension of time, and everything 
can be arranged if you will add something to the assets 
so as to buy up all title to the debts.” 


152 EugSnie Grandet. 

“We- we ’ll see about th-that. I c-c-can’t and 1 
w-w-won’t b-b-bind myself without — He who c-c-can*t, 
can’t ; don’t you see ? ” 

“That’s very true.” 

“I’m all p-p-put ab-b-bout by what 3 ’ou’ve t-t-told 
me. This is the f-first t-t-time in my life I have b-been 
obliged to th-th think — ” 

“ Yes, you are not a lawyer.” 

“I’m onl}^ a p-p-poor wine-g-grower, and know 
n-nothing about wh-what you have just t-told me ; I 
m-m-must th-think about it.” 

“ Very good,” said the president, preparing to 
resume his argument. 

“ Nephew !” said the notary, interrupting him in a 
warning tone. 

“Well, what, uncle?” answered the president. 

“ Let Monsieur Grandet explain his own intentions. 
The matter in question is of the first importance. Our 
good friend ought to define his meaning clearly, 
and — ” 

A loud knock, which announced the arrival of the 
des Grassins family, succeeded by their entrance and 
salutations, hindered Cruchot from concluding his sen- 
tence. The notary was glad of the interruption, for 
Grandet was beginning to look suspiciously at him, 
and the wen gave signs of a brewing storm. In the 
first place, the notary did not think it becoming in a 


Eugenie Crrandet, 


153 


president of the Civil courts to go to Paris and manipu- 
late creditors and lend himself to an underhand job 
which clashed with the laws of strict integrity ; more- 
over, never having known old Grandet to express the 
slightest desire to pay anything, no matter what, he 
instinctively feared to see his nephew taking part in 
the affair. He therefore profited by the entrance of the 
des Grassins to take the president the arm and lead 
him into the embrasure of the window, — 

“You have said enough, nephew; you’ve shown 
enough devotion. Your desire to win the girl blinds 
you. The devil ! you must n’t go at it tooth and nail. 
Let me sail the ship now ; you can haul on the braces. 
Do you think it right to compromise your dignity as 
a magistrate in such a — ” 

He stopped, for he heard Monsieur des Grassins 
sa3dng to the old cooper as they shook hands, — 

“ Grandet, we have heard of the frightful misfortunes 
which have just befallen 3'Our family, — the failure of 
the house of Guillaume Grandet and the death of your 
brother. We have come to express our grief at these 
sad events.” 

“ There is but one sad event,” said the notary, 
interrupting the banker, — “ the death of Monsieur 
Grandet, junior ; and he would never have killed him- 
self had he thought in time of applying to his brother 
for help. Our old friend, who is honorable to his 


154 


EugSnie Grandet. 


finger-nails, intends to liquidate the debts of the Maison 
Grandet of Paris. To save him the worr}^ of legal pro- 
ceedings, my nephew, the president, has just offered to 
go to Paris and negotiate with the creditors for a 
satisfactory settlement.” 

These words, corroborated by GrandePs attitude as 
he stood silently nursing his chin, astonished the three 
des Grassins, who had been leisurely discussing the old 
man’s avarice as they came along, very nearly accusing 
him of fratricide. 

“ Ah ! I was sure of it,” cried the banker, looking 
at his wife. “ What did I tell you just now, Madame 
des Grassins ? Grandet is honorable to the backbone, 
and would never allow his name to remain under the 
slightest cloud ! Money without honor is a disease. 
There is honor in the provinces ! Eight, very right, 
Grandet. I ’m an old soldier, and I can’t disguise 
my thoughts ; I speak roughly. Thunder ! it is sub- 
lime ! ” 

“ Th-then s-s-sublime th- things c-c-cost d-dear,” an- 
swered the goodman, as the banker warmly wrung his 
hand. 

“ But this, my dear Grandet, — if the president will 
excuse me, — is a purety commercial matter, and needs 
a consummate business man. Your agent must be 
some one fully acquainted with the markets, — with dis- 
bursements, rebates, interest calculations, and so forth. 


Eugenie Grandet, 


155 


I am going to Paris on business of my own, and I can 
take charge of — ” 

“We’ll see about t-t-trying to m-m-manage it 
b-b-between us, under the p-p-p-peculiar c-c-circum- 
stances, b-b-but without b-b-binding m-m-myself to 
anything th-that I c-c-could not do/’ said Grandet, stut- 
tering ; “ because, you see, monsieur le president natu- 
rally expects me to pay the expenses of his journey.” 

The goodman did not stammer over the last words. 

“Eh!” cried Madame des Grassins, “why it is a 
pleasure to go to Paris. I would willingly pay to go 
myself.” 

She made a sign to her husband, as if to encourage 
him in cutting the enemy out of the commission, coute 
que coute ; then she glanced ironically at the two Cru- 
chots, who looked chap-fallen. Grandet seized the 
banker by a button and drew him into a corner of the 
room. 

“ I have a great deal more confidence in you than in 
the president,” he said; “besides, I’ve other fish to 
fry,” he added, wriggling his wen. “I want to buy 
a few thousand francs in the Funds while they are at 
eighty. They fall, I ’m told, at the end of each month. 
You know all about these things, don’t you? ” 

“ Bless me ! then, am I to invest enough to give you 
a few thousand francs a year ? ” 

“That’s not much to begin with. Hush I I don’t 


156 


EugSnie Grandet, 


want any one to know I am going to play that game. 
You can make the investment by the end of the month. 
Say nothing to the Crachots ; that ’ll anno}" them. If 
you are really going to Paris, we will see if there is 
anything to be done for m}^ poor nephew.” 

“Well, it’s all settled. I’ll start to-morrow by the 
mail-post,” said des Grassins aloud, “ and I will come 
and take your last directions at — what hour will suit 
you?” 

“ Five o’clock, just before dinner,” said Grandet, 
rubbing his hands. 

The two parties stayed on for a short time. Des 
Grassins said, after a pause, striking Grandet on the 
shoulder, — 

“ It is a good thing to have a relation like him.” 

“Yes, yes ; without making a show,” said Grandet, 
“ I am a g-good relation. I loved my brother, and I 
will prove it, unless it c-c-costs — ” 

“We must leave you, Grandet,” said the banker, 
interrupting him fortunately before he got to the end 
of his sentence. “ If I hurry my departure, I must 
attend to some matters at once.” 

“Very good, very good! I myself — in c-conse- 
quence of what I t-told you — I must retire to my own 
room and ‘ d-d-deliberate,’ as President Cruchot says.” 

“ Plague take him ! I am no longer Monsieur de 
Bonfons,” thought the magistrate ruefully, his face 


EugSnie Grandet. 157 

assuming the expression of a judge bored by an 
argument. 

The heads of the two factions walked off together. 
Neither gave any further thought to the treachery Gran- 
det had been guilty of in the morning against the whole 
wine-growing community ; each tried to fathom what 
the other was thinking about the real intentions of 
the wily old man in this new affair, but in vain. 

“Will you go with us to Madame Dorsonval’s?” 
said des Grassins to the notary. 

“We will go there later,” answered the president. 
‘‘ I have promised to say good-evening to Mademoiselle 
de Gribeaucourt, and we will go there first, if my uncle 
is willing.” 

“Farewell for the present!” said Madame des 
Grassins. 

When the Cruchots were a few steps off, Adolphe re- 
marked to his father, — 

‘ ‘ Are not they fuming, hein ? ” 

“Hold your tongue, my son!” said his mother; 
“ they might hear you. Besides, what you say is not in 
good taste, — law-school language.” 

“ Well, uncle,” cried the president when he saw the 
des Grassins disappearing, “ I began by being de Bon- 
fons, and I have ended as nothing but Cruchot.” 

“ I saw that that annoyed you ; but the wind has 
set fair for the des Grassins. What a fool you are, 


158 


Eugenie (xrandet. 


with all your cleverness ! Let them sail oflf on Gran- 
det’s ‘ We will see about it,’ and keep yourself quiet, 
young man. Eugenie will none the less be 3^our wife.” 

In a few moments the news of Grandet’s magnani- 
mous resolve was disseminated in three houses at the 
same moment, and the whole town began to talk of his 
fraternal devotion. Every one forgave Grandet for the 
sale made in defiance of the good faith pledged to the 
community ; they admired his sense of honor, and began 
to laud a generosity of which they had never thought 
him capable. It is part of the French nature to grow 
enthusiastic, or angry, or fervent about some meteor 
of the moment. Can it be that collective beings, na- 
tionalities, peoples, are devoid of memory? 

When Fere Grandet had shut the door he called 
Nanon. 

“ Don’t let the dog loose, and don’t go to bed ; we have 
work to do together. At eleven o’clock Cornoiller will 
be at the door with the chariot from Froidfond. Listen 
for him and prevent his knocking ; tell him to come 
In softly. Police regulations don’t allow nocturnal 
racket. Besides, the whole neighborhood need not 
know that I am starting on a journey.” 

So saying, Grandet returned to his private room, 
where Nanon heard him moving about, rummaging, and 
walking to and fro, though with much precaution, for 
he evidently did not wish to wake his wife and daugh- 


EugSnie (xrandet. 


159 


ter, and above all not to rouse the attention of his 
nephew, whom he had begun to anathematize when he 
saw a thread of light under his door. About the mid- 
dle of the night Eugenie, intent on her cousin, fancied 
she heard a cry like that of a dying person. It must be 
Charles, she thought ; he was so pale, so full of de- 
spair when she had seen him last, — could he have 
killed himself? She wrapped herself quickly in a loose 
garment, — a sort of pelisse with a hood, — and was about 
to leave the room when a bright light coming through 
the chinks of her door made her think of fire. But she 
recovered herself as she heard Nanon’s heavy steps and 
gruff voice mingling with the snorting of several horses. 

“Can my father be carrying off my cousin?’^ she 
said to herself, opening her door with great precaution 
lest it should creak, and yet enough to let her see into 
the corridor. 

Suddenly" her eye encountered that of her father ; and 
his glance, vague and un noticing as it was, terrified 
her. The good man and Nanon were yoked together 
by a stout stick, each end of which rested on their 
shoulders ; a stout rope was passed over it, on which 
was slung a small barrel or keg like those Pere Grandet 
still made in his bakehouse as an amusement for his 
leisure hours. 

“ Holy Virgin, how heavy it is I said the voice of 
Nanon. 


160 


Eugenie GrandeU 


‘ ‘ What a pity that it is onlj’ copper sous ! ” answered 
Grandet. “Take care j^ou don’t knock over the 
candlestick.” 

The scene was lighted by a single candle placed 
between two rails of the staircase. 

“ Cornoiller,” said Grandet to his in partihus^ 

‘^have you brought j’our pistols?” 

“No, monsieur. Mercy! what’s there to fear for 
your copper sous ? ” 

“ Oh ! nothing,” said Pere Grandet. 

“ Besides, we shall go fast,” added the man ; “ your 
farmers have picked out their best horses.” 

“Very good. You did not tell them where I was 
going?” 

“ I did n’t know where.” 

“ Very good. Is the carriage strong?” 

“Strong? hear to that, now! Why, it can cany 
three thousand weight. How much does that old keg 
weigh ? ” 

“Goodness!” e:i?claimaf. “ Nanon. “I ought to 
know ! There ’s pretty nign eighteen hundred — ” 

“Will you hold your tongue, Nanon! You are to 
tell my wife I have gone into the country. I shall be 
back to dinner. Drive fast, Cornoiller; I must get 
to Angers before nine o’clock.” 

The. carriage drove off. Nanon bolted the great 
door, let loose the dog, and went to bed with a bruised 


EugSnie Grandet, 


161 


shoulder, no one in the neighborhood suspecting either 
the departure of Grandet or the object of his journey. 
The precautions of the old miser and his reticence were 
never relaxed. No one had ever seen a penny in that 
house, filled as it was with gold. Hearing in the morn- 
ing, through the gossip of the port, that exchange on 
gold had doubled in price in consequence of certain 
military preparations undertaken at Nantes, and that 
speculators had arrived at Angers to buy coin, the 
old wine-grower, by the simple process of borrowing 
horses from his farmers, seized the chance of selling 
his gold and of bringing back in the form of treasury 
notes the sum he intended to put into the Funds, hav- 
ing swelled it considerably by the exchange. 


162 


Mugenie QrandeU 


VIII. 

“ My father has gone,” thought Eugenie, who heard 
all that took place from the head of the stairs. Si- 
lence was restored in the house, and the distant rumb- 
ling of the carriage, ceasing by degrees, no longer 
echoed through the sleeping town. At this moment 
Eugenie heard in her heart, before the sound caught 
her ears, a cry which pierced the partitions and came 
from her cousin’s chamber. A line of light, thin as the 
blade of a sabre, shone through a chink in the dooi 
and fell horizontally on the balusters of the rotten 
staircase. 

“ He suffers ! ” she said, springing up two stairs. A 
second moan brought her to the landing near his room. 
The door was ajar, she pushed it open. Charles was 
sleeping ; his head hung over the side of the old arm- 
chair, and his hand, from which the pen had fallen, 
nearly touched the floor. The oppressed breathing 
caused by the strained posture suddenly frightened 
Eugenie, who entered the room hastily. 

“ He must be very tired,” she said to herself, glanc- 
ing at a dozen letters lying sealed upon the table. 


EugSnie Grandet. 


163 


She read their addresses: “To Messrs. Farry, Breil- 
mann, & Co., carriage-makers;” “To Monsieur Buis- 
son, tailor,” etc. 

“ He has been settling all his affairs, so as to leave 
France at once,” she thought. Her eyes fell upon 
two open letters. The words, “ My dear Annette,” at 
the head of one of them, blinded her for a moment. 
Her heart beat fast, her feet were nailed to the 
floor. 

“His dear Annette! He loves! he is loved! No 
hope ! What does he sa}^ to her ? ” 

These thoughts rushed through her head and heart. 
She saw the words everywhere, even on the bricks of 
the floor, in letters of fire. 

“ Resign him already ? No, no ! I will not read the 
letter. I ought to go away — What if I do read it ? ” 

She looked at Charles, then she gently took his head 
and placed it against the back of the chair ; he let her 
do so, like a child which, though asleep, knows its 
mother’s touch and receives, without awaking, her 
kisses and watchful care. Like a mother Eugenie raised 
the drooping hand, and like a mother she gently kissed 
the chestnut hair — ‘ ‘ Dear Annette ! ” a demon 

shrieked the words into her ear. 

“ I am doing wrong; but I must read it, that let- 
ter,” she said. She turned away her head, for her 
noble sense of honor reproached her. For the first 


164 


Eugeyiie GrrandtU 


time in her life good and evil struggled together in her 
heart. Up to that moment she had never had to blush 
for an}' action. Passion and curiosity triumphed. As 
she read each sentence her heart swelled more and 
more, and the keen glow which filled her being as she 
did so, only made the joys of first love still more 
precious. 

My dear Annette, — Nothing could ever have sepa- 
rated us but the great misfortune which has now over- 
whelmed me, and which no human foresight could have 
prevented. My father has killed himself ; his fortune and 
mine are irretrievably lost. I am orphaned at an age when, 
through the nature of my education, I am still a child; and 
yet I must lift myself as a man out of the abyss into which I 
am plunged. I have just spent half the night in facing my 
position. If I wish to leave France an honest man, — and 
there is no doubt of that, — I have not a hundred francs of my 
own with which to try my fate in the Indies or in America. 
Yes, my poor Anna, I must seek my fortune in those deadly 
climates. Under those skies, they tell me, I am sure to make 
it. As for remaining in Paris, I cannot do so. Neither my 
nature nor my face are made to bear the affronts, the neg- 
lect, the disdain shown to a ruined man, the son of a bank- 
rupt! Good God! think of owing two millions! I should 
be killed in a duel the first week; therefore I shall not return 
there. Your love — the most tender and devoted love which 
ever ennobled the heart of man — cannot draw me back. 
Alas! my beloved, I have no money with which to go to you, 
to give and receive a last kiss from which I might derive 
some strength for my forlorn enterprise. 


Eugenie Grandet. 165 

“Poor Charles! I did well to read the letter. I 
have gold ; I will give it to him,” thought Eugenie. 

She wiped her eyes, and went on reading. 

I have never thought of the miseries of poverty. If I have 
the hundred louis required for the mere costs of the journey, 
I have not a sou for an outfit. But no, I have not the hun- 
dred louis, not even one louis. I don’t know that anything 
will be left after I have paid mj’^ debts in Paris. If I have 
nothing, I shall go quietly to Nantes and ship as a common 
sailor ; and I will begin in the new world like other men who 
have started young without a sou and brought back the wealth 
of the Indies. During this long day I have faced my future 
coolly. It seems more horrible for me than for another, be- 
cause I have been so petted by a mother who adored me, so 
indulged by the kindest of fathers, so blessed by meeting, on 
my entrance into life, with the love of an Anna! The flowers 
of life are all I have ever known. Such happiness could not 
last. Nevertheless, my dear Annette, I feel more courage 
than a careless young man is supposed to feel, — above 
all a young man used to the caressing ways of the dearest 
woman in all Paris, cradled in family joys, on whom all 
things smiled in his home, whose wishes were a law to his 
father — oh, my father! Annette, he is dead! 

Well, I have thought over my position, and yours as well. 
I have grown old in twenty-four hours. Dear Anna, if in 
order to keep me with you in Paris you were to sacrifice 
your luxury, your dress, your opera-box, we should even 
then not have enough for the expenses of my extravagant 
ways of living. Besides, I would never accept such sacri- 
^ces. No, we must part now and forever — 


166 EugSnie Grandet, 

“ He gives her up ! Blessed Virgin ! What happi« 
ness ! ” 

Eugenie quivered with joy. Charles made a move 
ment, and a chill of terror ran through her. Fortunately, 
he did not wake, and she resumed her reading. 

When shall I return? I do not know. The climate of 
the West Indies ages a European, so they say; especially a 
European who works hard. Let us think what may happen 
ten years hence. In ten years your daughter will be eighteen ; 
she will be your companion, your spy. To you society will 
be cruel, and your daughter perhaps more cruel still. We 
have seen cases of the harsh social judgment and ingratitude 
of daughters ; let us take warning by them. Keep in the 
depths of your soul, as I shall in mine, the memory of four 
years of happiness, and be faithful, if you can, to the mem- 
ory of your poor friend. I cannot exact such faithfulness, 
because, do you see, dear Annette, I must conform to the 
exigencies of my new life ; I must take a commonplace view 
of them and do the best I can. Therefore I must think of 
marriage, which becomes one of the necessities of my future 
existence ; and I will admit to you that I have found, here in 
Saumur, in my uncle’s house, a cousin whose face, manners, 
mind, and heart would please you, and who, besides, seems 
to me — 

“ He must have been very weary to have ceased 
writing to her,” thought Eugenie, as she gazed at the 
letter which stopped abruptly in the middle of the last 
sentence. 


Eugenie Grandet. 


167 


Already she defended him. How was it possible that 
an innocent girl should perceive the cold-heartedness 
evinced by this letter? To j^oung girls religiously 
brought up, whose minds are ignorant and pure, all is 
love from the moment they set their feet within the 
enchanted regions of that passion. They walk there 
bathed in a celestial light shed from their own souls, 
which reflects its rays upon their lover ; they color all 
with the flame of their own emotion and attribute to him 
their highest thoughts. A woman’s errors come almost 
always from her belief in good or her confidence in 
truth. In Eugenie’s simple heart the words, “ My dear 
Annette, my loved one,” echoed like the sweetest lan- 
guage of love ; they caressed her soul as, in childhood, 
the divine notes of the Venite adoremus^ repeated 
by the organ, caressed her ear. Moreover, the tears 
which still lingered on the young man’s lashes gave 
signs of that nobility of heart by which young girls are 
rightly won. How could she know that Charles, 
though he loved his father and mourned him truly, was 
moved far more by paternal goodness than by the 
goodness of his own heart? Monsieur and Madame 
Guillaume Grandet, by gratifying every fancy of their 
son, and lavishing upon him the pleasures of a large 
fortune, had kept him from making the horrible calcula- 
tions of which so many sons in Paris become more or 
less guilty when, face to face with the enjoyments of thq 


168 


Eugenie Grandet, 


world, they form desires and conceive schemes which 
they see with bitterness must be put off or laid aside 
during the lifetime of their parents. The liberality of 
the father in this instance had shed into the heart of 
the son a real love, in which there was no afterthought 
of self-interest. 

Nevertheless, Charles was a true child of Paris, 
taught by the customs of society and by Annette her- 
self to calculate everything ; already an old man under 
the mask of youth. He had gone through the frightful 
education of social life, of that world where in one even- 
ing more crimes are committed in thought and speech 
than justice ever punishes at the assizes ; where jests 
and clever savings assassinate the noblest ideas ; where 
no one is counted strong unless his mind sees clear: 
and to see clear in that world is to believe in nothing, 
neither in feelings, nor in men, nor even in events, — 
for events are falsified. There, to “see clear” we 
must weigh a friend’s purse daily, learn how to keep 
ourselves adroitly on the top of the wave, cautiously 
admire nothing, neither works of art nor glorious ac- 
tions, and remember that self-interest is the mainspring 
of all things here below. After committing many fol- 
lies, the great lady — the beautiful Annette — com- 
pelled Charles to think seriousl}’ ; with her perfumed 
hand among his curls, she talked to him of his future 
position ; as she rearranged his locks, she taught him 


Eugenie GrandeL 


169 


lessons of worldly prudence ; she made him effeminate 
a'nd materialized him, — a double corruption, but a deli- 
cate and elegant corruption, in the best taste. 

“ You are very foolish, Charles,” she would say to 
him. “ I shall have a great deal of trouble in teaching 
you to understand the world. You behaved extremely 
ill to Monsieur des Lupeaulx. I know very well he is 
not an honorable man ; but wait till he is no longer in 
power, then you may despise him as much as you like. 
Do you know what Madame Campan used to tell us ? 
— ‘ My dears, as long as a man is a minister, adore 
him ; when he falls, help to drag him into the gutter. 
Powerful, he is a sort of god ; fallen, he is lower than 
Marat in the sewer, because he is living, and Marat 
is dead. Life is a series of combinations, and you must 
study them and understand them if you want to keep 
yourselves always in good position.’ ” 

Charles was too much a man of the world, his par- 
ents had made him too happ}^, he had received too 
much adulation in societ}", to be possessed of noble 
sentiments. The grain of gold dropped by his mother 
into his heart was beaten thin in the smith}" of Parisian 
society ; he had spread it superficially, and it was worn 
away by the friction of life. Charles was only twenty- 
one years old. At that age the freshness of youth 
seems inseparable from candor and sincerity of soul. 
The voice, the glance, the face itself, seem in harmony 


170 


EugSnie Grandet, 


with the feelings ; and thus it happens that the sternest 
judge, the most sceptical lawj^er, the least complying 
of usurers, always hesitate to admit decrepitude of heart 
or the corruption of worldly calculation while the eyes 
are still bathed in purity and no wrinkles seam the 
brow. Charles, so far, had had no occasion to apply 
the maxims of Parisian morality ; up to this time he 
was still endowed with the beauty of inexperience. 
And yet, unknown to himself, he had been inoculated 
with selfishness. The germs of Parisian political econ- 
omy, latent in his heart, would assuredly burst forth, 
sooner or later, whenever the careless spectator became 
an actor in the drama of real life. 

Nearly all young girls succumb to the tender prom- 
ises such an outward appearance seems to offer : even if 
Eugenie had been as prudent and observing as provincial 
girls are often found to be, she was not likely to dis- 
trust her cousin when his manners, words, and actions 
were still in unison with the aspirations of a youthful 
heart. A mere chance — a fatal chance — threw in her 
way the last effusions of real feeling which stirred the 
young man’s soul ; she heard as it were the last breath- 
ings of his conscience. She laid down the letter — to 
her so full of love — and began smilingly to watch 
her sleeping cousin ; the fresh illusions of life were 
still, for her at least, upon his face ; she vowed to her- 
self to love him always. Then she cast her eyes on the 


Eugenie Grandet. 


171 


other letter, without attaching much importance to this 
second indiscretion ; and though she read it, it was only 
to obtain new proofs of the noble qualities which, like 
all women, she attributed to the man her heart had 
chosen. 

My dear Alphonse, — When you receive this letter 1 
shall be without friends ; but let me assure you that while I 
doubt the friendship of the world, I have never doubted 
yours. I beg you therefore to settle all my affairs, and I 
trust to you to get as much as you can out of my possessions. 
By this time you know my situation. I have nothing left, 
and I intend to go at once to the Indies. I have just written 
to all the people to whom I think I owe money, and you will 
find inclosed a list of their names, as correct as I can make 
it from memory. My books, my furniture, my pictures, my 
horses, etc., ought, I think, to pay my debts. I do not wish 
to keep anything, except, perhaps, a few baubles which 
might serve as the beginning of an outfit for my enterprise. 
My dear Alphonse, I will send you a proper power of attor- 
ney under which you can make these sales. Send me all my 
weapons. Keep Briton for yourself ; nobody would pay the 
value of that noble beast, and I would rather give him to 
you — like a mourning-ring bequeathed by a dying man to 
his executor. Farry, Breilmann, & Co. built me a very 
comfortable travelling-carriage, which they have not yet 
delivered ; persuade them to keep it and not ask for any pay- 
ment on it. If they refuse, do what you can in the matter, 
and avoid everything that might seem dishonorable in me 
under my present circumstances. I owe the British Islander 
six louis, which I lost at cards; don't fail to pay him — 


172 


EugSnie Grandet, 


“ Dear cousin ! ” whispered Eugenie, throwing down 
the letter and running softlj' back to her room, carrying 
one of the lighted candles. A thrill of pleasure passed 
over her as she opened the drawer of an old oak cabi- 
net, a fine specimen of the period called the Renaissance, 
on which could still be seen, partly effaced, the famous 
roj-al salamander. She took from the drawer a large 
purse of red velvet with gold tassels, edged with a 
tarnished fringe of gold wire, — a relic inherited from 
her grandmother. She weighed it proudlj^ in her hand, 
and began with delight to count over the forgotten 
items of her little hoard. First she took out twenty 
portugaises, still new, struck in the reign of John V., 
1725, worth by exchange, as her father told her, five 
lisbonnines^ or a hundred and sixtj^-eight francs, sixty- 
four centimes each ; their conventional value, however, 
was a hundred and eighty francs apiece, on account 
of the rarity and beauty of the coins, which shone like 
little suns. Item, five genovines^ or five hundred-franc 
pieces of Genoa ; another very rare coin worth eighty- 
seven francs on exchange, but a hundred francs to col- 
lectors. These had formerly belonged to old Monsieur 
de la Bertelliere. Item, three gold quadruples^ Span- 
ish, of Philip V., struck in 1729, given to her one by 
one by Madame Gentillet, who never failed to say, 
using the same words, when she made the gift, “ This 
dear little canary, this little yellow-boy, is worth ninety- 


JEugSnie Grandet. 


173 


eight francs ! Keep it, mj pre% one, it will be the 
flower of your treasure.” Item (that which her father 
valued most of all, the gold of these coins being twenty- 
three carats and a fraction) , a hundred Dutch ducats, 
made in the year 1756, and worth thirteen francs 
apiece. Item, a great curiosity, a species of medal 
precious to the soul of misers, — three rupees with the 
sign of the Scales, and five rupees with the sign of the 
Virgin, all in pure gold of twent^'-four carats ; the mag- 
nificent money of the Great Mogul, each of which was 
worth by mere weight thirty-seven francs, forty cen- 
times, but at least fifty francs to those connoisseurs who 
love to handle gold. Item, the napoleon of forty francs 
received the day before, which she had forgotten to put 
away in the velvet purse. This treasure was all in 
virgin coins, true works of art, which Grandet from 
time to time inquired after and asked to see, pointing 
out to his daughter their intrinsic merits, — such as the 
beauty of the milled edge, the clearness of the flat 
surface, the richness of the lettering, whose angles were 
not yet rubbed off. 

Eugenie gave no thought to these rarities, nor to 
her father’s mania for them, nor to the danger she in- 
curred in depriving herself of a treasure so dear to 
him ; no, she thought onty of her cousin, and soon 
made out, after a few mistakes of calculation, that she 
possessed about five thousand eight hundred francs in 


174 


EugSnie Grandet, 


actual value, which might be sold for their additional 
value to collectors for nearly six thousand. She looked 
at her wealth and clapped her hands like a happy 
child forced to spend its overflowing joy in artless 
movements of the bod3^ Father and daughter had 
each counted up their fortune this night, — he, to sell 
his gold ; Eugenie to fling hers into the ocean of aflec- 
tion. She put the pieces back into the old purse, took 
it in her hand, and ran upstairs without hesitation. 
The secret misery of her cousin made her forget the 
hour and conventional propriety ; she was strong in her 
conscience, in her devotion, in her happiness. 

As she stood upon the threshold of the door, holding 
the candle in one hand and the purse in the other, 
Charles woke, caught sight of her, and remained 
speechless with surprise. Eugenie came forward, put 
the candle on the table, and said in a quivering voice : 

“ My cousin, I must beg 3- our pardon for a wrong I 
have done you ; but God will pardon me — if you — 
will help me to wipe it out.” 

“ What is it?” asked Charles, rubbing his e^^es. 

“ I have read those letters.” 

Charles colored. 

“ How did it happen?” she continued; “ how came 
I here? Truly, I do not know. I am tempted not to 
regret too much that I have read them; they have 
made me know your heart, your soul, and — ” 


Eugenie Grandet, 


176 


“ And what? ” asked Charles. 

“ Your plans, your need of a sum — ” 

“ My dear cousin — ” 

“ Hush, hush ! my cousin, not so loud ; we must not 
wake others. See,” she said, opening her purse, “ here 
are the savings of a poor girl who wants nothing. 
Charles, accept them! This morning I was ignorant 
of the value of money ; you have taught it to me. It is 
but a means, after all. A cousin is almost a brother ; 
you can surely borrow the purse of your sister.” 

Eugenie, as much a woman as a young girl, never 
dreamed of refusal ; but her cousin remained silent. 

“Oh! you will not refuse?” cried Eugenie, the 
beatings of whose heart could be heard in the deep 
silence. 

Her cousin’s hesitation mortified her; but the sore 
need of his position came clearer still to her mind, and 
she knelt down. 

“I will never rise till you have taken that gold ! ” 
she said. “ My cousin, I implore you, answer me ! 
let me know if you respect me, if 3"ou are generous, 
if — ” 

As he heard this cry of noble distress the young 
man’s tears fell upon his cousin’s hands, which he had 
caught in his own to keep her from kneeling. As the 
warm tears touched her, Eugenie sprang to the purse 
and poured its contents upon the table. 


176 


EugSnie GrandeL 


“Ah! yes, yes, you consent?” she said, weeping 
with joy. “ Fear nothing, my cousin, you will be rich. 
This gold will bring 3"ou happiness ; some da}^ ^^ou shall 
bring it back to me, — are we not partners ? I will 
obey all conditions. But you should not attach such 
value to the gift.” 

Charles was at last able to express his feelings. 

“Yes, Eugenie; my soul would be small indeed if 
I did not accept. And yet, — gift for gift, confidence 
for confidence.” 

“ What do you mean? ” she said, frightened. 

“Listen, dear cousin; I have here — ” He inter- 
rupted himself to point out a square box covered with 
an outer case of leather which was on the drawers. 
“There,” he continued, “is something as precious to 
me as life itself. This box was a present from my 
mother. All day I have been thinking that if she could 
rise from her grave, she would herself sell the gold 
which her love for me lavished on this dressing-case ; 
but were I to do so, the act would seem to me a sacri- 
lege.” Eugenie pressed his hand as she heard these last 
words. “No,” he added, after a slight pause, during 
which a liquid glance of tenderness passed between 
them, “ no, I will neither sell it nor risk its safety on 
my journey. Dear Eugenie, 3’ou shall be its guardian. 
Never did friend commit anything more sacred to 
another. Let me show it to 3"OU.” 


Eugenie Grandet, 


17T 


He went to the box, took it from its outer coverings, 
opened it, and showed his delighted cousin a dressing- 
case where the rich workmanship gave to the gold 
ornaments a value far above their weight. 

“ What you admire there is nothing,” he said, push- 
ing a secret spring which opened a hidden drawer. 
“ Here is something which to me is worth the whole 
world.” He drew out two portraits, masterpieces of 
Madame Mirbel, richly set with pearls. 

“ Oh, how beautiful ! Is it the lady to whom you 
wrote that — ” 

“ No,” he said, smiling; “ this is my mother, and 
here is my father, your aunt and uncle. Eugenie, I 
beg you on my knees, keep my treasure safely. If I 
die and your little fortune is lost, this gold and these 
pearls will repay you. To you alone could I leave 
these portraits ; you are worth}^ to keep them. But 
destroy them at last, so that they ma}^ pass into no other 
hands.” Eugenie was silent. “ Ah, yes, say yes ! 
You consent?” he added with winning grace. 

Hearing the very words she had just used to her 
cousin now addressed to herself, she turned upon him 
a look of love, her first look of loving womanhood, — 
a glance in which there is nearly as much of co- 
quetry as of inmost depth. He took her hand and 
kissed it. 

“ Angel of purity ! between us two money is nothing, 

12 


178 Eugenie Grandet, 

never can be anything. Feeling, sentiment, must be 
all henceforth.” 

“You are like your mother, — was her voice as soft 
as yours ? ” 

“ Oh ! much softer — ” 

“ Yes, for you,” she said, dropping her eyelids. 
“Come, Charles, go to bed; I wish it: you must be 
tired. Good-night.” She gently disengaged her hand 
from those of her cousin, who followed her to her room, 
lighting the way. When they were both upon the 
threshold, — 

“ Ah ! ” he said, “ why am I ruined?” 

“What matter? — my father is rich; I think so,” 
she answered. 

“Poor child!” said Charles, making a step into her 
room and leaning his back against the wall, “ if that 
were so, he would never have let my father die ; he 
would not let you live in this poor way ; he would live 
otherwise himself.” 

“ But he owns Froidfond.” 

“ What is Froidfond worth?” 

“ I don’t know ; but he has Noyerd.” 

“ Nothing but a poor farm I ” 

“ He has vineyards and fields.” 

“ Mere nothing,” said Charles disdainfully. “ If 
your father had onl}' twenty- four thousand francs a 
year do you suppose you would live in this cold, bar- 


EugSnie G-randet. 


179 


ren room ? ” he added, making a step in advance. “Ah ! 
there you will keep my treasures,” he said, glancing at 
the old cabinet, as if to hide his thoughts. 

“ Go and sleep,” she said, hindering his entrance 
into the disordered room. 

Charles stepped back, and they bid each other good- 
night with a mutual smile. 

Both fell asleep in the same dream ; and from that 
moment the youth began to wear roses with his mourn- 
ing. The next day, before breakfast, Madame Gran- 
det found her daughter in the garden in company with 
Charles. The young man was still sad, as became a 
poor fellow who, plunged in misfortune, measures the 
depths of the abyss into which he has fallen, and sees 
the terrible burden of his whole future life. 

“ My father will not be home till dinner-time,” said 
Eugenie, perceiving the anxious look on her mother’s 
face. 

It was easy to trace in the face and manners of the 
young girl and in the singular sweetness of her voice 
a unison of thought between her and her cousin. Their 
souls had espoused each other, perhaps before they even 
felt the force of the feelings which bound them together. 
Charles spent the morning in the hall, and his sadness 
was respected. Each of the three women had occupa- 
tions of her own. Grandet had left all his affairs unat- 
tended to, and a number of persons came on business, — 


180 


EugSnie Grandet. 


the plumber, the mason, the slater, the carpenter, the 
diggers, the dressers, the farmers ; some to drive a bar- 
gain about repairs, others to pay their rent or to be paid 
themselves for services. Madame Grandet and Euge- 
nie were obliged to go and come and listen to the inter- 
minable talk of all these workmen and country folk. 
Nanon put awa}" in her kitchen the produce which they 
brought as tribute. She always waited for her master’s 
orders before she knew what portion was to be used in 
the house and what was to be sold in the market. It 
was the goodman’s custom, like that of a great many 
country gentlemen, to drink his bad wine and eat his 
spoiled fruit. 

Towards five in the afternoon Grandet returned from 
Angers, having made fourteen thousand francs by the 
exchange on his gold, bringing home in his wallet 
good treasury-notes which bore interest until the day 
he should invest them in the Funds. He had left Cor- 
noiller at Angers to look after the horses, which were 
wellnigh foundered, with orders to bring them home 
slowly after they were rested. 

“ I have got back from Angers, wife,” he said ; “I 
am hungry.” 

Nanon called out to him from the kitchen : “ Have n’t 
you eaten anything since yesterday ? ” 

“ Nothing,” answered the old man. 

Nanon brought in the soup. Des Grassins came to 


EugSnie Grandet, 


181 


take his client’s orders just as the family sat down to 
dinner. Grandet had not even observed his nephew. 

“Go on eating, Grandet,” said the banker; “we 
can talk. Do you know what gold is worth in Angers? 
They have come from Nantes after it? I shall send 
some of ours.” 

“Don’t send any,” said Grandet; “they have got 
enough. We are such old friends, I ought to save you 
from such a loss of time.” 

“ But gold is worth thirteen francs fifty centimes.” 

“Say was worth — ” 

“ Where the devil have they got any? ” 

“ I went to Angers last night,” answered Grandet in 
a low voice. 

The banker shook with surprise. Then a whispered 
conversation began between the two, during which 
Grandet and des Grassins frequently looked at Charles. 
Presently des Grassins gave a start of astonishment ; 
probably Grandet was then instructing him to invest 
the sum which was to give him a hundred thousand 
francs a year in the Funds. 

“ Monsieur Grandet,” said the banker to Charles, “ I 
am starting for Paris ; if you have any commissions — ” 

“ None, monsieur, I thank you,” answered Charles. 

“ Thank him better than that, nephew. Monsieur 
is going to settle the affairs of the house of Guillaume 
Grandet.” 


182 


EugSnie GrandeU 


“ Is there any hope? ” said Charles eagerly. 

“ What ! ” exclaimed his uncle, with well-acted pride, 
“ are you not my nephew? Your honor is ours. Is not 
your name Grandet? ” 

Charles rose, seized Pere Grandet, kissed him, turned 
pale, and left the room. Eugenie looked at her father 
with admiration. 

“ Well, good-by, des Grassins ; it is ail in your 
hands. Decoy those people as best you can ; lead ’em 
by the nose.” 

The two diplomatists shook hands. The old cooper 
accompanied the banker to the front door. Then, after 
closing it, he came back and plunged into his armchair, 
saying to Nanon, — 

“ Get me some black-currant ratafia.” 

Too excited, however, to remain long in one place, 
he got up, looked at the portrait of Monsieur de la 
Bertelliere, and began to sing, doing what Nanon called 
his dancing-steps, — 

Dans les gardes fran^aises 
J’avais un bon papa.” 

Nanon, Madame Grandet, and Eugenie looked at 
each other in silence. The hilarity of the master al- 
ways frightened them when it reached its climax. The 
evening was soon over. Pere Grandet chose to go to 
bed early, and when he went to bed, everybody else was 


EugSnle Grandet, 


183 


expected to go too ; like as when Augustus drank, Po- 
land was drunk. On this occasion Nanon, Charles, and 
Eugenie were not less tired than the master. As for 
Madame Grandet, she slept, ate, drank, and walked 
according to the will of her husband. However, dur- 
ing the two hours consecrated to digestion, the cooper, 
more facetious than he had ever been in his life, uttered 
a number of his own particular apothegms, — a single 
one of which will give the measure of his mind. When 
he had drunk his ratafia, he looked at his glass and 
said, — 

“ You have no sooner put your lips to a glass than 
it is empty ! Such is life. You can’t have and hold. 
Gold won’t circulate and stay in your purse. If it were 
not for that, life would be too fine.” 

He was jovial and benevolent. When Nanon came 
with her spinning-wheel, “ You must be tired,” he 
said; “put away your hemp.” 

“ Ah, bah ! then I shall get sleepy,” she answered. 

“ Poor Nanon ! Will you have some ratafia? ” 

“ I won’t refuse a good offer ; madame makes it a 
deal better than the apothecaries. What they sell 
is all drugs.” 

“ They put too much sugar,” said the master; “you 
can’t taste anything else.” 


184 


EugSnie GrrandeU 


IX. 


The following day the family, meeting at eight o’clock 
for the early breakfast, made a picture of genuine do- 
mestic intimacy. Grief had drawn Madame Grandet, 
Eugenie, and Charles en rapport ; even Nanon sym- 
pathized, without knowing why. The four now made 
one family. As to the old man, his satisfied avarice 
and the certainty of soon getting rid of the dandy 
without having to pay more than his journey to Nantes, 
made him nearly indiflerent to his presence in the house. 
He left the two children, as he called Charles and Eu- 
genie, free to conduct themselves as they pleased, under 
the eye of Madame Grandet, in whom he had implicit 
confidence as to all that concerned public and religious 
morality. He busied himself in straightening the boun- 
daries of his fields and ditches along the high-road, in 
his poplar-plantations beside the Loire, in the winter 
work of his vineyards, and at Froidfond. AU these 
things occupied his whole time. 

For Eugenie the springtime of love had come. 
Since the scene at night when she gave her little 
treasure to her cousin, her heart had followed the 


Eugenie Grandet, 


185 


treasure. Confederates in the same secret, they looked 
at each other with a mutual intelligence which sank to 
the depth of their consciousness, giving a closer com- 
munion, a more intimate relation to their feelings, and 
putting them, so to speak, beyond the pale of ordinary 
life. Did not their near relationship warrant the gen- 
tleness in their tones, the tenderness in their glances? 
Eugenie took delight in lulling her cousin’s pain with 
the pretty childish joys of a new-born love. Are there 
no sweet similitudes between the birth of love and the 
birth of life? Do we not rock the babe with gentle 
songs and softest glances? Do we not tell it marvel- 
lous tales of the golden future ? Hope herself, does she 
not spread her radiant wings above its head? Does 
it not shed, with infant fickleness, its tears of sorrow 
and its tears of joy? Does it not fret for trifles, cry 
for the pretty pebbles with which to build its shifting 
palaces, for the flowers forgotten as soon as plucked? 
Is it not eager to grasp the coming time, to spring for- 
ward into life? Love is our second transformation* 
Childhood and love were one and the same thing to 
Eugenie and to Charles ; it was a first passion, with all 
its child-like play, — the more caressing to their hearts 
because they now were wrapped in sadness. Struggling 
at birth against the gloom of mourning, their love was 
only the more in harmony with the provincial plainness 
of that gray and ruined house. As they exchanged a 


186 


EugSnie Crrandet. 


few words beside the well in the silent court, or lingered 
in the garden for the sunset hour, sitting on a mossy 
seat saying to each other the infinite nothings of love, 
or mused in the silent calm which reigned between the 
house and the ramparts like that beneath the arches of 
a church, Charles comprehended the sanctit}" of love ; 
for his great lady, his dear Annette, had taught him 
only its stormy troubles. At this moment he left the 
worldl}^ passion, coquettish, vain, and show}’ as it was, 
and turned to the true, pure love. He liked even the 
house, whose customs no longer seemed to him ridicu- 
lous. He got up early in the mornings that he might 
talk with Eugenie for a moment before her father came 
to dole out the provisions ; when the steps of the old 
man sounded on the staircase he escaped into the gar- 
den. The small criminality of this morning tke-a-tete 
which Nanon pretended not to see, gave to their innocent 
love the livel}^ charm of a forbidden joy. 

After breakfast, when Grandet had gone to his fields 
and his other occupations, Charles remained with the 
mother and daughter, finding an unknown pleasure in 
holding their skeins, in watching them at work, in lis- 
tening to their quiet prattle. The simplicit}’ of this 
half-monastic life, which revealed to him the beauty of 
these souls, unknown and unknowing of the world, 
touched him keenly. He had believed such morals 
impossible in France, and admitted their existence 


Eugenie Grrandet. 


187 


nowhere but in Germany ; even so, they seemed to him 
fabulous, only real in the novels of Auguste Lafon- 
taine. Soon Eugenie became to him the Margaret of 
Goethe — before her fall. Day by day his words, his 
looks enraptured the poor girl, who jhelded herself up 
with delicious non-resistance to the current of love ; she 
caught her happiness as a swimmer seizes the over- 
hanging branch of a willow to draw himself from the 
river and lie at rest upon its shore. Did no dread 
of a coming absence sadden the happy hours of those 
fleeting days ? Daily some little circumstance reminded 
them of the parting that was at hand. 

Three days after the departure of des Grassins, 
Grandet took his nephew to the Civil courts, with the 
solemnity which country people attach to all legal acts, 
that he might sign a deed surrendering his rights in 
his father’s estate. Terrible renunciation ! species of 
domestic apostasy ! Charles also went before Maitre 
Cruchot to make two powers of attorney, — one for des 
Grassins, the other for the friend whom he had charged 
with the sale of his belongings. After that he attended 
to all the formalities necessary to obtain a passport for 
foreign countries ; and finally, when he received his sim- 
ple mourning clothes from Paris, he sent for the tailor 
of Saumur and sold to him his useless wardrobe. This 
last act pleased Grandet exceedingly. 

“ Ah ! now you look like a man prepared to embanc 


188 EugSnie Grandet, 

0 

and make your fortune,” he said, when Charles ap- 
peared in a surtout of plain black cloth. “ Good ! 
very good ! ” 

“ I hope you will believe, monsieur,” answered his 
nephew, “ that I shall always tiy to conform to my 
situation.” 

“ What ’s that? ” said his uncle, his ej^es lighting up 
at a handful of gold which Charles was carrying. 

“Monsieur, I have collected all my buttons and rings 
and other superfluities which may have some value ; but 
not knowing any one in Saumur, I wanted to ask you 
to — ” 

“ To buy them? ” said Grandet, interrupting him. 

“ No, uncle ; only to tell me of an honest man 
who — ” 

“ Give me those things, I will go upstairs and esti- 
mate their value ; I will come back and tell j^ou what it 
is to a fraction. Jeweller’s gold,” examining a long 
chain, “ eighteen or nineteen carats.” 

The goodman held out his huge hand and received 
the mass of gold, which he carried away. 

“ Cousin,” said Charles, “ may I offer 3 ^ou these two 
buttons ? They can fasten ribbons round 3 'our wrists ; 
that sort of bracelet is much the fashion just now.” 

“ I accept without hesitation,” she answered, giving 
him an understanding look. 

“ Aunt, here is my mother’s thimble ; I have always 


Eugenie Grandet, 


189 


kept it carefully in my dressing-case,” said Charles, 
presenting a pretty gold thimble to Madame Grandet, 
who for many years had longed for one. 

“ I cannot thank you ; no words are possible, my 
nephew,” said the poor mother, whose eyes filled with 
tears. “ Night and morning in my prayers I shall add 
one for you, the most earnest of all — for those who 
travel. If I die, Eugenie will keep this treasure for 
you.” 

“ They are worth nine hundred and eighty-nine 
francs, seventy-five centimes,” said Grandet, opening 
the door. “ To save you the pain of selling them, 
I will advance the money — in 

The word livres on the littoral of the Loire signifies 
that crown prices of six limes are to be accepted as six 
francs without deduction. 

“ I dared not propose it to you,” answered Charles ; 
“ but it was most repugnant to me to sell my jewels to 
some second-hand dealer in your own town. People 
should wash their dirty linen at home, as Napoleon 
said. I thank you for your kindness.” 

Grandet scratched his ear, and there was a moment's 
silence. 

“ My dear uncle,” resumed Charles, looking at him 
with an uneasy air, as if he feared to wound his feel- 
ings, “ my aunt and cousin have been kind enough to 
accept a trifling remembrance of me. Will you allow me 


190 


EugSnie GrandeL 


to give you these sleeve-buttons, which are useless to 
me now ? They will remind you of a poor fellow who, 
far away, will always think of those who are henceforth 
all his family.” 

“ My lad, my lad, you must n’t rob yourself this way ! 
Let me see, wife, what have you got?” he added, turn- 
ing eagerly to her. “Ah! a gold thimble. And you, 
little girl? What ! diamond buttons? Yes, I ’ll accept 
your present, nephew,” he answered, shaking Charles 
by the hand. “ But — you must let me — pay — your 
— yes, your passage to the Indies. Yes, I wish to pay 
your passage because — d ’ye see, my boy ? — in valuing 
your jewels I estimated onlj^ the weight of the gold ; 
very likely the workmanship is worth something. So 
let us settle it that I am to give you fifteen hundred 
francs — in livres ; Cruchot will lend them to me. I 
have n’t got a copper farthing here, — unless Perrotet, 
who is behindhand with his rent, should pay up. By 
the bye, I ’ll go and see him.” 

He took his hat, put on his gloves, and went out. 

“ Then you are really going?” said Eugenie to her 
cousin, with a sad look, mingled with admiration. 

“ I must,” he said, bowing his head. 

For some days past, Charles’s whole bearing, manners, 
and speech had become those of a man who, in spite of 

f 

his profound affliction, feels the weight of immense 
obligations and has the strength to gather courage from 


Eugenie Grandet. 


191 


misfortune. He no longer repined, he became a man. 
Eugenie never augured better of her cousin’s character 
than when she saw him come down in the plain black 
clothes which suited well with his pale face and sombre 
countenance. On that day the two women put on their 
own mourning, and all three assisted at a Requiem 
celebrated in the parish church for the soul of the late 
Guillaume Grandet. 

At the second breakfast Charles received letters from 
Paris and began to read them. 

“ Well, cousin, are j^ou satisfied with the manage- 
ment of your affairs?” said Eugenie in a low voice. 

“ Never ask such questions, my daughter,” said 
Grandet. “ What the devil ! do I tell you my affairs? 
Why do you poke your nose into your cousin’s ? Let 
the lad alone!” 

“Oh 1 I have n’t any secrets,” said Charles. 

“ Ta, ta, ta, ta, nephew ; you ’ll soon find out that 
you must hold your tongue in business.” 

When the two lovers were alone in the garden, 
Charles said to Eugenie, drawing her down on the 
old bench beneath the walnut-tree, — 

“I did right to trust Alphonse; he has done fa- 
mously. He has managed my affairs with prudence 
and good faith. I now owe nothing in Paris. All 
my things have been sold ; and he tells me that he 
has taken the advice of an old sea-captain and spent 


192 Hugenu Cirandet 

three thousand francs on a commercial outfit of Euro- 
pean curiosities which will be sure to be in demand in 
the Indies. He has sent my trunks to Nantes, where a 
ship is loading for San Domingo. In five days, Euge- 
nie, we must bid each other farewell — perhaps forever, 
at least for years. My outfit and ten thousand francs, 
which two of my friends send me, are a very small 
beginning. I cannot look to return for many years. 
My dear cousin, do not weigh 3 ’our life in the scales 
with mine ; I may perish ; some good marriage may be 
offered to 3 "ou — ” 

“ Do you love me? ” she said. 

“ Oh, yes ! indeed, yes ! he answered, with a depth 
of tone that revealed an equal, depth of feeling. 

“I shall wait, Charles — Good heavens! there is 
my father at his window,” she said, repulsing her 
cousin, who leaned forward to kiss her. 

She ran quickly under the archway. Charles fol- 
lowed her. When she saw him, she retreated to the 
foot of the staircase and opened the swing-door ; then,' 
scarcely knowing where she was going, Eugenie reached 
the corner near Nanon’s den, at the darkest end of the 
passage. There Charles caught her hand and drew her 
to his heart. Passing his arm about her waist, he made 
her lean gently upon him. Eugenie no longer resisted ; 
she received and gave the purest, the sweetest, and yet, 
withal, the most unreserved of kisses. 


EugSnie GrandeU 


193 


“ Dear Eugenie, a cousin is better than a brother, 
for he can marry you,” said Charles. 

“So be it ! ” cried Nanon, opening the door of her 
lair. 

The two lovers, alarmed, fled into the hall, where 
Eugenie took up her work and Charles began to read 
the litanies of the Virgin in Madame Grandet’s prayer- 
book. 

“ Mercy ! ” cried Nanon, “ now they ’re saying their 
prayers.” 

As soon as Charles announced his immediate depar- 
ture, Grandet bestirred himself to testify much interest 
in his nephew. He became very liberal of all that cost 
him nothing ; took pains to find a packer ; declared the 
man asked too much for his cases ; insisted on making 
them himself out of old planks ; got up early in the 
morning to fit and plane and nail together the strips, 
out of which he made, to his own satisfaction, some 
strong cases, in which he packed all Charles’s effects ; 
he also took upon himself to send them by boat down 
the Loire, to insure them, and get them to Nantes in 
proper time. 

After the kiss taken in the passage, the hours fled for 
Eugenie with frightful rapidity. Sometimes she thought 
of following her cousin. Those who have known that 
most endearing of all passions, — the one whose duration 
is each day shortened by time, by age, by mortal illness, 
13 


194 


EugSnie Grandet, 

by human chances and fatalities, — they will under- 
stand the poor girl’s tortures. She wept as she walked 
in the garden, now so narrow to her, as indeed the 
court, the house, the town all seemed. She launched 
in thought upon the wide expanse of the ocean he was 
about to traverse. At last the eve of his departure came. 
That morning, in the absence of Grandet and of Nanon, 
the precious case which contained the two portraits was 
solemnly installed in the only drawer of the old cabinet 
which could be locked, where the now empty velvet 
purse was lying. This deposit was not made without 
a goodly number of tears and kisses. When Eugenie 
placed the key within her bosom she had no courage to 
forbid the kiss with which Charles sealed the act. 

“ It shall never leave that place, my friend,” she 
said. 

“ Then my heart will be always there.” 

“Ah! Charles, it is not right,” she said, as though 
she blamed him. 

“Are we not married?” he said. “I have thy 
promise, — then take mine.” 

“ Thine ; I am thine forever ! ” they each said, repeat- 
ing the words twice over. 

No promise made upon this earth was ever purer. 
The innocent sincerity of Eugenie had sanctified for a 
moment the young man’s love. 

On the morrow the breakfast was sad. Nanon her- 


EugSnie Grandet. 


196 


self, in spite of the gold-embroidered robe and a Jean- 
nette cross bestowed by Charles, had tears in her eyes. 

“ The poor dear monsieur who is going on the seas — 
oh, may God guide him ! ” 

At half-past ten the whole family started to escort 
Charles to the diligence for Nantes. Nanon let loose 
the dog, locked the door, and insisted on carrying the 
young man’s carpet-bag. All the tradesmen in the 
tortuous old street were on the sill of their shop-doors 
to watch the procession, which was joined in the market- 
place by Maitre Cruchot. 

“ Eugenie, be sure you don’t crj^,” said her mother. 

“Nephew,” said Grandet in the doorway of the inn 
from which the coach started, kissing Charles on both 
cheeks, “depart poor, return rich; you will find the 
honor of your father safe. I answer for that myself, 
I — Grandet ; for it will only depend on you to — ” 

“Ah! my uncle, 3^ou soften the bitterness of my 
departure. Is it not the best gift that you could make 
me? ” 

Not understanding his uncle’s words which he had 
thus interrupted, Charles shed tears of gratitude upon 
the tanned cheeks of the old miser, while Eugenie 
pressed the hand of her cousin and that of her father 
with all her strength. The notary" smiled, admiring the 
sly speech of the old man, which he alone had under- 
stood. The family stood about the coach until it 


196 


EugSnie Grandet, 

started ; then as it disappeared upon the bridge, and 
its rumble grew fainter in the distance, Grandet said : 

“ Good-b}^ to you ! ” 

Happily no one but Maitre Cruchot heard the excla- 
mation. Eugenie and her mother had gone to a corner 
of the quay from which the}’^ could still see the diligence 
and wave their white handkerchiefs, to which Charles 
made answer by displacing his. 

“Ah! mother, would that I had the power of God 
for a single moment,” said Eugenie, when she could no 
longer see her lover’s handkerchief. 

Not to interrupt the current of events which are 
about to take place in the bosom of the Grandet family, 
it is necessary to cast a forestalling ej-e upon the vari- 
ous operations which the goodman carried on in Paris 
by means of Monsieur des Grassins. A month after 
the latter’s departure from Saumur, Grandet became 
possessed of a certificate of a hundred thousand francs a 
year from his investment in the Funds, bought at eighty 
francs net. The particulars revealed at his death by the 
inventory of his property threw no light upon the means 
which his suspicious nature took to remit the price of 
the investment and receive the certificate thereof. 
Maitre Cruchot was of opinion that Nanon, unknown 
to herself, was the trusty instrument by which the 
money was transported ; for about this time she was 


EugSnie Grrandet, 


197 


absent five days, under a pretext of putting things to 
rights at Froidfond, — as if the goodman were capable 
of leaving anything lying about or out of order ! 

In all that concerned the business of the house of 
Guillaume Grandet the old cooper’s intentions were 
fulfilled to the letter. The Bank of France, as every- 
body knows, affords exact information about all the 
large fortunes in Paris and the provinces. The names 
of des Grassins and Felix Grandet of Saumur were well 
known there, and the}^ enjoyed the esteem bestowed on 
financial celebrities whose wealth comes from immense 
and unencumbered territorial possessions. The arrival 
of the Saumur banker for the purpose, it was said, of 
honorably liquidating the affairs of Grandet of Paris, 
was enough to avert the shame of protested notes from 
the memory of the defunct merchant. The seals on the 
properly were taken off in presence of the creditors, 
and the notary employed by Grandet went to work at 
once on the inventory of the assets. Soon after this, 
des Grassins called a meeting of the creditors, who 
unanimously elected him, conjointly with Fran§ois Kel- 
ler, the head of a rich banking-house and one of those 
principally interested in the affair, as liquidators, with 
full power to protect both the honor of the famil}^ and 
the interests of the claimants. The credit of Grandet 
of Saumur, the hopes he diffused by means of des Gras- 
sins into the minds of all concerned, facilitated the trans* 


198 


EugSnie G-randet, 


actions. Not a single creditor proved recalcitrant ; no 
one thought of passing his claim to his profit-and-loss 
account; each and all said confidently, “ Grandet of 
Saumur will pay.” 

Six months went by. The Parisians had redeemed 
the notes in circulation as they fell due, and held 
them under lock and key in their desks. First result 
aimed at by the old cooper ! Nine months after this 
preliminary meeting, the two liquidators distributed 
forty-seven per cent to each creditor on his claim. 
This amount was obtained bj" the sale of the securities, 
property, and possessions of all kinds belonging to the 
late Guillaume Grandet, and was paid over with scrupu- 
lous fidelity. Unimpeachable integrity was shown in 
the transaction. The creditors gratefully acknowledged 
the remarkable and incontestable honor displayed by the 
Grande ts. When these praises had circulated for a 
certain length of time, the creditors asked for the rest 
of their money. It became necessary to write a collec- 
tive letter to Grandet of Saumur. 

“ Here it comes ! ” said the old man as he threw the 
letter into the fire. “ Patience, my good friends ! ” 

In answer to the proposals contained in the letter, 
Grandet of Saumur demanded that all vouchers for 
claims against the estate of his brother should be de- 
posited with a notar}’, together with acquittances for the 
forty-seven per cent already paid j he made this demand 


EugSnie Grandet, 


199 


under pretence of sifting the accounts and finding out 
the exact condition of the estate. It roused at once a 
variety of difficulties. Generally speaking, the creditor 
is a species of maniac, ready to agree to anything 
one day, on the next breathing fire and slaughter ; 
later on, he grows amicable and eas3-going. To-day his 
wife is good-humored, his last baby has cut its first 
tooth, all is well at home, and he is determined not 
to lose a sou ; on the morrow it rains, he canT go out, 
he is gloom}", he says yes to an}" proposal that is made 
to him, so long as it will put an end to the affair ; on 
the third day he declares he must have guarantees ; by 
the end of the month he wants his debtor’s head, and 
becomes at heart an executioner. The creditor is a 
good deal like the sparrow on whose tail confiding 
children are invited to put salt, — with this difference, 
that he applies the image to his claim, the proceeds of 
which he is never able to lay hold of. Grandet had 
studied the atmospheric variations of creditors, and 
the creditors of his brother justified all his calculations. 
Some were angry, and flatly refused to give in their 
vouchers. 

“Very good; so much the better,” said Grandet, 
rubbing his hands over the letter in which des Grassins 
announced the fact. 

Others agreed to the demand, but only on condi- 
tion that their rights should be fully guaranteed ; they 


200 


Euginie G-randet. 


renounced none, and even reserved the power of ulti- 
matel}" compelling a failure. On this began a long corre- 
spondence, which ended in Grandet of Saumur agreeing 
to all conditions. By means of this concession the 
placable creditors were able to bring the dissatisfied 
creditors to reason. The deposit was then made, but 
not without sundry complaints. 

“Your goodman,” they said to des Grassins, “is 
tricking us.” 

Twenty-three months after the death of Guillaume 
Grandet many of the creditors, carried away by more 
pressing business in the markets of Paris, had forgotten 
their Grandet claims, or only thought of them to say : 

“ I begin to believe that forty-seven per cent is all I 
shall ever get out of that affair.” 

The old cooper had calculated on the power of time, 
which, as he used to say, is a prett}^ good devil after 
all. By the end of the third year des Grassins wrote 
to Grandet that he had brought the creditors to agree 
to give up their claims for ten per cent on the two 
million four hundred thousand francs still due by the 
house of Grandet. Grandet answered that the notary 
and the broker whose shameful failures had caused the 
death of his brother were still living, that they might 
now have recovered their credit, and that they ought 
to be sued, so as to get something out of them towards 
lessening the total of the deficit. 


Eugenie G-randet. 


201 


By the end of the fourth year the liabilities were 
definitely estimated at a sum of twelve hundred thou- 
sand francs. Man}’’ negotiations, lasting over six 
months, took place between the creditors and the liqui- 
dators, and between the liquidators and Grandet. To 
make a long story short, Grandet of Saumur, anxious 
by this time to get out of the aft'air, told the liquidators, 
about the ninth month of the fourth year, that his 
nephew had made a fortune in the Indies and was dis- 
posed to pay his father’s debts in full ; he therefore 
could not take upon himself to make any settlement with- 
out previously consulting him ; he had written to him, 
and was expecting an answer. The creditors were held 
in check until the middle of the fifth year by the words, 
“ payment in full,” which the wily old miser threw out 
from time to time as he laughed in his beard, saying 
with a smile and an oath, “Those Parisians!” 

But the creditors were reserved for a fate unexampled 
in the annals of commerce. When the events of this 
history bring them once more into notice, they will be 
found still in the position Grandet had resolved to force 
them into from the first. 

As soon as the Funds reached a hundred and fifteen, 
Pere Grslndet sold out his interests and withdrew two 
million four hundred thousand francs in gold, to which 
he added, in his coffers, the six hundred thousand francs 
compound interest which he had derived from the capi- 


202 EugSnie G^randet, 

tal. Des Grassins now lived in Paris. In the first 
place he had been made a deputy ; then he became 
infatuated (father of a family as he was, though horribly 
bored by the provincial life of Saumur) with a pretty 
actress at the Theatre de Madame, known as Florine, 
and he presently relapsed into the old habits of his 
army life. It is useless to speak of his conduct ; Sau- 
mur considered it profoundly immoral. His wife was 
fortunate in the fact of her property being settled upon 
herself, and in having sufficient ability to keep up the 
banking-house in Saumur, which was managed in her 
name and repaired the breach in her fortune caused by 
the extravagance of her husband. The Cruchotines 
made so much talk about the false position of the quasi- 
widow that she married her daughter very badlj^, and 
was forced to give up all hope of an alliance between 
Eugenie Grandet and her son. Adolphe joined his 
father in Paris and became, it was said, a worthless 
fellow. The Cruchots triumphed. 

“ Your husband has n’t common sense,” said Grandet 
as he lent Madame des Grassins some mone}’ on a note 
securel}' indorsed. “ I am very sorry for you, for you 
are a good little woman.” 

“Ah, monsieur,” said the poor lady, “who could 
have believed that when he left Saumur to go to Paris 
on your business he was going to his ruin ? ” 

“ Heaven is my witness, madame, that up to the last 


Eugenie Grrandet. 


208 


moment I did all I could to prevent him from going. 
Monsieur le president was most anxious to take his 
place ; but he was determined to go, and now we all 
see why.” 

In this way Grandet made it quite plain that he was 
under no obligation to des Grassins. 

In all situations women have more cause for suffering 
than men, and they suffer more. Man has strength and 
the power of exercising it ; he acts, moves, thinks, 
occupies himself ; he looks ahead, and sees consolation 
in the future. It was thus with Charles. But the 
woman stays at home ; she is always face to face with 
the grief from which nothing distracts her; she goes 
down to the depths of the abyss which yawns before 
her, measures it, and often fills it with her tears and 
prayers. Thus did Eugenie. She initiated herself 
into her destiny. To feel, to love, to suffer, to devote 
herself, — is not this the sum of woman’s life ? Eugenie 
was to be in all things a woman, except in the one 
thing that consoles for all. Her happiness, picked up 
like nails scattered on a wall — to use the fine simile of 
Bossuet — would never so much as fill even the hollow 
of her hand. Sorrows are never long in coming ; for 
her they came soon. The day after Charles’s departure 
the house of Monsieur Grandet resumed its ordinary 
aspect in the e^^es of all, except in those of Eugenie, to 


204 


Eugenie Grandet, 


whom it grew suddenly empty. She wished, if it could 
be done unknown to her father, that Charles’s room 
might be kept as he had left it. Madame Grandet and 
Nanon were willing accomplices in this statu quo. 

“ Who knows but he maj^ come back sooner than we 
think for?” she said. 

“ Ah, don’t I wish I could see him back ! ” answered 
Nanon. “ I took to him ! He was such a dear, sweet 
young man, — pretty too, with his curly hair.” Euge- 
nie looked at Nanon. “Holy Virgin! don’t look at 
me that way, mademoiselle ; your ej^es are like those 
of a lost soul.” 

From that day the beauty of Mademoiselle Grandet 
took a new character. The solemn thoughts of love 
which slowly filled her soul, and the dignity of the 
woman beloved, gave to her features an illumination 
such as painters render by a halo. Before the coming 
of her cousin, Eugenie might be compared to the Virgin 
before the conception ; after he had gone, she was 
like the Virgin Mother, — she had given birth to love. 
These two Marys so different, so well represented by 
Spanish art, embody one of those shining symbols with 
which Christianity abounds. 

Keturning from Mass on the morning after Charles’s 
departure, — having made a vow to hear it daily, — Euge- 
nie bought a map of the world, which she nailed up beside 
her looking-glass, that she might follow her cousin on 


EugSnie G-randeL 


206 


his westward way, that she might put herself, were it 
ever so little, day by day into the ship that bore him, 
and see him and ask him a thousand questions, — “ Art 
thou well ? Dost thou suffer ? Dost thou think of me 
when the star, whose beauty and usefulness thou hast 
taught me to know, shines upon thee?” In the morn- 
ings she sat pensive beneath the walnut-tree, on the 
worm-eaten bench covered with gray lichens, where 
they had said to each other so many precious things, 
so many trifles, where they had built the pretty castles 
of their future home. She thought of the future now 
as she looked upward to the bit of sky which was all 
the high walls suffered her to see ; then she turned her 
ej^es to the angle where the sun crept on, and to the 
roof above the room in which he had slept. Hers was 
the solitary love, the persistent love, which glides into 
every thought and becomes the substance, or, as our 
fathers might have said, the tissue of life. When the 
would-be friends of Pere Grandet came in the evening 
for their game at cards, she was gay and dissimulating ; 
but all the morning she talked of Charles with her 
mother and Nanon. Nanon had brought herself to see 
that she could pity the sufferings of her young mistress 
without failing in her duty to the old master, and she 
would say to Eugenie, — 

“ If I had a man for myself I *d — I *d follow him 
to hell, yes, I ’d exterminate myself for him ; but I Ve 


206 EugSnie Grandet. 

none. I shall die and never know what life is. Would 
you believe, mamz’elle, that old Cornoiller (a good 
fellow all the same) is alwaj’S round my petticoats 
for the sake of my money, — just for all the world like 
the rats who come smelling after the master’s cheese 
and pacing court to you? I see it all; I’ve got a 
shrewd eye, though I am as big as a steeple. Well, 
mamz’elle, it pleases me, but it is n’t love.” 


Eugenie GrandeL 


207 


X. 


Two months went by. This domestic life, once so 
monotonous, was now quickened with the intense inter- 
est of a secret that bound these women intimately 
together. For them Charles lived and moved beneath 
the grim gray rafters of the hall. Night and morning 
Eugenie opened the •dressing-case and gazed at the 
portrait of her aunt. One Sunday morning her mother 
surprised her as she stood absorbed in finding her 
cousin’s features in his mother’s face. Madame Gran- 
det was then for the first time admitted into the terrible 
secret of the exchange made by Charles against her 
daughter’s treasure. 

“ You gave him all ! ” cried the poor mother, terrified. 
“ What will you saj^ to your father on New Year’s Day 
when he asks to see your gold ? ” 

Eugenie’s eyes grew fixed, and the two women lived 
through mortal terror for more than half the morning. 
They were so troubled in mind that they missed high 
Mass, and only went to the military service. In three 
days the year 1819 would come to an end. In three 
days a terrible drama would begin, a bourgeois tragedy, 


208 


EugSnie G-randet, 


without poison, or dagger, or the spilling of blood; 
but — as regards the actors in it — more cruel than all 
the fabled horrors in the family of the Atrides. 

“ What will become of us? ” said Madame Grandet 
to her daughter, letting her knitting fall upon her 
knees. 

The poor mother had gone through such anxiety for 
the past two months that the woollen sleeves which 
she needed for the coming winter were not yet finished. 
This domestic fact, insignificant as it seems, bore sad 
results. For want of those sleeves, a chill seized her 
in the midst of a sweat caused by a terrible explosion 
of anger on the part of her husband. 

“ I have been thinking, m}^ poor child, that if you 
had confided your secret to me we should have had 
time to write to Monsieur des Grassins in Paris. He 
might have sent us gold pieces like yours ; though 
Grandet knows them all, perhaps — ” 

“ Where could we have got the money?” 

“ I would have pledged my own property. Besides, 
Monsieur des Grassins would have — ” 

“It is too late,” said Eugenie in a broken, hollow 
voice. “To-morrow morning we must go and wish 
him a happy New Year in his chamber.” 

“But, my daughter, why should I not consult the 
Cruchots ? ” 

“ No, no ; it would be delivering me up to them, and 


EugSnie Grandet. 


209 


putting ourselves in their power. Besides, I have 
chosen my course. I have done right, I repent of 
nothing. God will protect me. His will be done ! 
Ah ! mother, if you had read his letter, you, too, would 
have thought only of him.” 

The next morning, January 1, 1820, the horrible fear 
to which mother and daughter were a prey suggested 
to their minds a natural excuse by which to escape the 
solemn entrance into Grandet’s chamber. The winter 
of 1819-1820 was one of the coldest of that epoch. 
The snow encumbered the roofs. 

Madame Grandet called to her husband as soon as 
she heard him stirring in his chamber, and said, — 

“ Grandet, will 3 ’ou let Nanon light a fire here for 
me ? The cold is so sharp that I am freezing under the 
bedclothes. At my age I need some comforts. Be- 
sides,” she added, after a slight pause, “ Eugenie shall 
come and dress here ; the poor child might get an ill- 
ness from dressing in her cold room in such weather. 
Then we will go and wish you a happy New Year beside 
the fire in the hall.” 

“ Ta, ta, ta, ta, what a tongue ! a pretty way to 
begin the new 3 ’ear, Ma’ame Grandet! You never 
talked so much before ; but you have n’t been sopping 
your bread in wine, I know that.” 

There was a moment’s silence. 

“ Well,” resumed the goodman, who no doubt had 
14 


210 


Eugenie Grandet. 


some reason of his own for agreeing to his wife^s re- 
quest, “ I ’ll do what jou ask, Madame Grandet. You 
are a good woman, and I don’t want any harm to hap- 
pen to 3'ou at your time of life, — though as a general 
thing the Bertellieres are as sound as a roach. Hein ! 
isn’t that so?” he added after a pause. “Well, I 
foi-give them ; we got their propert}^ in the end.” And 
he coughed. 

“ You are verj^ gay this morning, monsieur,” said the 
poor woman gravel}'. 

“I’m always gay, — 

“ ‘ Gai, gai, gai, le tonuelier, 

Raccomraodez votre cuvier ! * ** 

he answered, entering his wife’s room fully dressed. 
“Yes, on my word, it is cold enough to freeze you 
solid. We shall have a fine breakfast, wife. Des 
Grassins has sent me a pate-de-foie-gras truffled ! I am 
going now to get it at the coach-office. There ’ll be a 
double napoleon for Eugenie in the package,” he whis- 
pered in Madame Grandet’s ear. “ I have no gold left, 
wife. I had a few stray pieces — I don’t mind telling 
you that — but I had to let them go in business.” 

Then, by wa}' of celebrating the new year, he kissed 
her on the forehead. 

“ Eugenie,” cried the mother, when Grandet was 
fairly gone, “ I don’t know which side of the bed your 


EugSnie Grandet. 211 

father got out of, but he is good-tempered this morning. 
Perhaps we shall come out safe after all.” 

“What’s happened to the master?” said Nanon, 
entering her mistress’s room to light the fire. “ First 
place, he said, ‘ Good -morning ; happy New Year, you 
big fool ! Go and light my wife’s fire, she ’s cold ;’ and 
then, did n’t I feel silly when he held out his hand and 
gave me a six-franc piece, which is n’t worn one bit? 
Just look at it, madame ! Oh, the kind man! He is 
a good man, that ’s a fact. There are some people who 
the older they get the harder they grow ; but he, — why 
he ’s getting soft and improving with time, like your 
ratafia I He is a good, good man — ” 

The secret of Grandet’s jo^^ la}" in the complete suc- 
cess of his speculation. Monsieur des Grassins, after 
deducting the amount which the old cooper owed him 
for the discount on a hundred and fifty thousand francs 
in Dutch notes, and for the surplus which he had ad- 
vanced to make up the sum required for the investment 
in the Funds which was to produce a hundred thousand 
francs a year, had now sent him, by the diligence, 
thirty thousand francs in silver coin, the remainder of 
his first half-year’s interest, informing him at the same 
time that the Funds had already gone up in value. 
They were then quoted at eighty-nine ; the shrewdest 
capitalists bought in, towards the last of January, at 
ninety-three. Grandet had thus gained in two months 


212 


EugSnie Grandet. 


twelve per cent on his capital; he had simplified his 
accounts, and would in future receive fiftj^ thousand 
francs interest every six months, without incurring any 
taxes or costs for repairs. He understood at last what 
it was to invest money in the public securities, — a 
system for which provincials have alwaj^s shown a 
marked repugnance, — and at the end of five 3’ears he 
found himself master of a capital of six millions, which 
increased without much effort of his own, and which, 
joined to the value and proceeds of his territorial pos- 
sessions, gave him a fortune that was absolutely colos- 
sal. The six francs bestowed on Nanon were perhaps 
the reward of some great service which the poor servant 
had rendered to her master unawares. 

“Oh! oh! where’s Pere Grandet going? He has 
been skurrying about since sunrise as if to a fire,” 
said the tradespeople to each other as they opened their 
shops for the day. 

When they saw him coming back from the wharf, 
followed b}' a porter from the coach-office wheeling a 
barrow which was laden with sacks, thej^ all had their 
comments to make : — 

“Water flows to the river; the old fellow was run- 
ning after his gold,” said one. 

“ He gets it from Paris and Froidfond and Holland,” 
said another. 

“ He ’ll end by buying up Saumur,” cried a third. 


Euginie Qrandet, 


213 


“ He doesn’t mind the cold, he’s so wrapped up in 
his gains,” said a wife to her husband. 

“ Hey ! hey ! Monsieur Grandet, if that ’s too heavy 
for you,” said a cloth-dealer, his nearest neighbor, “I’ll 
take it off your hands.” 

“ Heavy? ” said the cooper, “ I should think so ; it ’s 
all sous ! ” 

“ Silver sous,” said the porter in a low voice. 

“If you want me to take care of you, keep your 
tongue between your teeth,” said the goodman to the 
porter as they reached the door. 

“ The old fox ! I thought he was deaf ; seems he can 
hear fast enough in frosty weather.” 

“ Here ’s twenty sous for 3’our New Year, and mum ! ” 
said Grandet. “Be off with you! Nanon shall take 
back your barrow. Nanon, are the linnets at church? ’' 

“ Yes, monsieur.” 

“ Then lend a hand I go to work ! ” he cried, piling 
the sacks upon her. In a few moments all were carried 
up to his inner room, where he shut himself in with 
them. “ When breakfast is ready, knock on the wall,” 
he said as he disappeared. “Take the barrow back 
to the coach-office.” 

The family did not breakfast that day until ten 
o’clock. 

“ Your father will not ask to see your gold down- 
stairs,” said Madame Grandet as they got back from 


214 


EugSnie Grandet. 


Mass. “You must pretend to be very chilly. We 
may have time to replace the treasure before your 
fete-day.’^ 

Grandet came down the staircase thinking of his 
splendid speculation in government securities, and won- 
dering how he could metamorphose his Parisian silver 
into solid gold ; he was making up his mind to invest 
in this way everything he could lay hands on until 
the Funds should reach a par value. Fatal revery for 
Eugenie ! As soon as he came in, the two women 
wished him a happy New Year, — his daughter b}^ put- 
ting her arms round his neck and caressing him; 
Madame Grandet gravely and with dignity. 

“Ha! ha! my child,” he said, kissing his daughter 
on both cheeks. “ I work for j^ou, don’t you see? I 
think of 3"our happiness. Must have money to be 
happy. Without money there ’s not a particle of hap- 
piness. Here ! there’s a new napoleon for you. I sent 
to Paris for it. On m3" word of honor, it ’s all the gold 
I have ; 3’ou are the only one that has got any gold. 
I want to see your gold, little one.” 

“ Oh ! it is too cold ; let us have breakfast,” answered 
Eugenie. 

“ Well, after breakfast, then ; it will help the diges- 
tion. That fat des Grassins sent me the pat 4 . Eat as 
much as 3"ou like, m3" children, it costs nothing. Des 
Grassins is getting along very well. I am satisfied 


EugSnie Grandet, 


215 


with him. The old fish is doing Charles a good service, 
and gratis too. He is making a very good settlement 
of that poor deceased Grandet’s business. Hoo ! hoo ! ” 
he muttered, with his mouth full, after a pause, “ how 
good it is ! Eat some, wife ; that will feed you for at 
least two days.” 

“I am not hungry. I am very poorly; you know 
that.” 

“ Ah, bah ! you can stuff yourself as full as you 
please without danger, you ’re a Bertelliere ; they are 
all hearty. You are a bit yellow, that’s true; but I 
like yellow, m3"self.” 

The expectation of ignominious and public death is 
perhaps less horrible to a condemned criminal than the 
anticipation of what was coming after breakfast to 
Madame Grandet and Eugenie. The more gleefully 
the old man talked and ate, the more their hearts shrank 
within them. The daughter, however, had an inward 
prop at this crisis, — she gathered strength through 
love. 

“ For him ! for him ! ” she cried within her, “ I would 
die a thousand deaths.” 

At this thought, she shot a glance at her mother 
which flamed with courage. 

“ Clear away,” said Grandet to Nanon when, about 
eleven o’clock, breakfast was over, “but leave the 
table. We can spread your little treasure upon it,” he 


216 


Eugenie Grandet, 


said, looking at Eugenie. “ Little? Faith ! no ; it is n’t 
little. You possess, in actual value, five thousand nine 
hundred and fiftj’-nine francs and the forty I gave you 
just now. That makes six thousand francs, less one. 
Well, now see here, little one ! I’ll give you that one 
franc to make up the round number. Hey ! what are 
3"ou listening for, Nanon? Mind 3"our own business; 
go and do 3’our work.” 

Nanon disappeared. 

“Now listen, Eugenie : you must give me back your 
gold. You won’t refuse 3"our father, m3" little girl, 
hein?” 

The two women were dumb. 

“I have no gold m3"self. I had some, but it is all 
gone. I ’ll give 3"Ou in return six thousand francs in 
livres^ and 3"ou are to put them just where I tell you. 
You must n’t think an3"t\iing more about 3"our ‘ dozen.’ 
When I marr3" 3"Ou (which will be soon) I shall get you 
a husband who can give 3"ou the finest ‘ dozen ’ ever 
seen in the provinces. Now attend to me, little girl. 
There ’s a fine chance for you ; 3"ou can put your six 
thousand francs into government funds, and 30U will 
receive ever3" six months nearl3" two hundred francs 
interest, without taxes, or repairs, or frost, or hail, or 
floods, or anything else to swallow up the mone3". 
Perhaps 3"ou don’t like to part with 3"our gold, he3", my 
girl? NeA"er mind, bring it to me all the same. I’ll 


EugSnie G-randet, 


217 


get you some more like it, — like those Dutch coins and 
the portugaises, the rupees of Mogul, and the genovines, 
— I ’ll give you some more on 3"our fete-days, and in 
three years you ’U have got back half your little treasure. 
What’s that you say? Look up, now. Come, go and 
get it, the precious metal. You ought to kiss me on 
the eyelids for telling you the secrets and the mysteries 
of the life and death of money. Yes, silver and gold 
live and swarm like men ; they come, and go, and 
sweat, and multiply — ” 

Eugenie rose ; but after making a few steps towards 
the door she turned abruptly, looked her father in the 
face, and said, — 

“ I have not got my gold.” 

“ You have not got your gold ! ” cried Grandet, start- 
ing up erect, like a horse that hears a cannon fired 
beside him. 

“ No, I have not got it.” 

“ You are mistaken, Eugenie.” 

“No.” 

“ By the shears of my father ! ” 

Whenever the old man swore that oath the rafters 
trembled. 

“Holy Virgin! Madame is turning pale,” cried 
Nanon. 

“ Grandet, your anger will kill me,” said the poor 
mother. 


218 


EugSnie Grandet, 


“ Ta, ta, ta, ta! nonsense; never die in your 
family! Eugenie, what have you done with your 
gold?’* he cried, rushing upon her. 

“ Monsieur,” said the daughter, falling at Madame 
Grandet’s knees, “ my mother is ill. Look at her; do 
not kill her.” 

Grandet was frightened by the pallor which over- 
spread his wife’s face, usuallj^ so 3"ellow. 

“ Nanon, help me to bed,” said the poor woman in a 
feeble voice ; “lam dying — ” 

Nanon gave her mistress an arm, Eugenie gave her 
another ; but it was onlj^ with infinite difficulty that they 
could get her upstairs, she fell with exhaustion at every 
step. Grandet remained alone. However, in a few 
moments he went up six or eight stairs and called 
out, — 

“ Eugenie, when your mother is in bed, come down.” 

“Yes, father.” 

She soon came, after reassuring her mother. 

“ My daughter,” said Grandet, “ 3'ou will now tell me 
what 3’ou have done with 3’our gold.” 

“ M3’ father, if 3^00 make me presents of which I am 
not the sole mistress, take them back,” she answered 
coldly, picking up the napoleon from the chimne3’-piece 
and olfering it to him. 

Grandet seized the coin and slipped it into his 
breeches’ pocket. 


Mugenie G-randet. 


219 


*‘I shall certainly never give you anything again 
Not so much as that ! ” he said, clicking his thumb-nail 
against a front tooth. “ Do you dare to despise your 
father? have you no confidence in him? Don’t you 
know what a father is ? If he is nothing for you, he is 
nothing at all. Where is your gold ? ” 

“Father, I love and respect you, in spite of your 
anger ; but I humbly ask you to remember that 1 am 
twenty- three years old. You have told me often that 
I have attained my majority, and I do not forget it. 
I have used my money as I chose to use it, and you 
may be sure that it was put to a good use — ” 

“ What use? ” 

“ That is an inviolable secret,” she answered. Have 
you no secrets ? ” 

“I am the head of the family; I have my own 
aflTairs.” 

“ And this is mine.” 

“ It must be something bad if you can’t tell it to your 
father, Mademoiselle Grandet.” 

“ It is good, and I cannot tell it to my father.” 

“ At least you can tell me when you parted with 
your gold?” 

Eugenie made a negative motion with her head. 

“ You had it on your birthday, hein? ” 

She grew as crafty through love as her father was 
through avarice, and reiterated the negative sign. 


220 


Eugenie Grandet, 


“Was there ever such obstinacy! It’s a theft,” 
cried Grandet, his voice going up in a crescendo which 
gradually echoed through the house. “What! here, 
in my own home, under my very eyes, somebody has 
taken your gold ! — the only gold we have ! — and I *m 
not to know who has got it ! Gold is a precious thing. 
Virtuous girls go wrong sometimes, and give — T don’t 
know what; they do it among the great people, and 
even among the bourgeoisie. But give their gold ! — 
for 3^ou have given it to some one, hein? — ” 

Eugenie was silent and impassive. 

“Was there ever such a daughter? Is it possible 
that I am 3’our father ? If you have invested it any- 
where, 3’ou must have a receipt — ” 

“ Was I free — yes or no — to do what I would with 
my own? Was it not mine?” 

“ You are a child.” 

“Of age.” 

Dumbfounded by his daughter’s logic, Grandet 
turned pale and stamped and swore. When at last 
he found words, he cried: “Serpent! Cursed girl! 
Ah, deceitful creature ! You know I love you, and 
3^ou take advantage of it. She’d cut her father’s 
throat ! Good God ! you ’ve given our fortune to that 
ne’er-do-well, — that dandy with morocco boots ! 
the shears of m3" father ! I can’t disinherit 3"Ou, but I 
curse 3"ou, — you and 3"our cousin and 3"our children! 


EugSnie Grandet, 


221 


Nothing good will come of it! Do you hear? If it 
was to Charles — but, no ; it ’s impossible. What ! has 
that wretched fellow robbed me ? — ” 

He looked at his daughter, who continued cold and 
silent. 

“ She won’t stir ; she won’t flinch ! She *s more 
Grandet than I ’m Grandet ! Ha ! you have not given 
your gold for nothing? Come, speak the truth ! ” 
Eugenie looked at her father with a sarcastic ex- 
pression that stung him. 

“Eugenie, you are here, in my house, — in your 
father’s house. If you wish to stay here, you must 
submit 3' ourself to me. The priests tell 3’ou to obey 
me.” Eugenie bowed her head. “ You afiront me in 
all I hold most dear. I will not see you again till you 
submit. Go to your chamber. You will staj^ there till 
I give 3"ou permission to leave it. Nanon will bring 
you bread and water. You hear me — go ! ” 

Eugenie burst into tears and fled up to her mother. 
Grandet, after marching two or three times round the 
garden in the snow without heeding the cold, suddenly 
suspected that his daughter had gone to her mother ; 
onlj' too happy’ to find her disobedient to his orders, 
he climbed the stairs with the agility of a cat and 
appeared in Madame Grandet’s room just as she was 
stroking Eugenie’s hair, while the girl’s face was hid' 
den in her motherly bosom. 


222 


EugSnie Grandet, 


‘‘Be comforted, my poor child,” she was saying; 
‘ ‘ your father will get over it.” 

“ She has no father ! ” said the old man. “ Can it 
be you and I, Madame Grandet, who have given birth 
to such a disobedient child? A fine education, — reli- 
gious, too! Well! why are 3^ou not in 3’our chamber? 
Come, to prison, to prison, mademoiselle ! ” 

“ Would you deprive me of my daughter, monsieur?” 
said Madame Grandet, turning towards him a face that 
was now red with fever. 

“ If you want to keep her, carrj" her oflT! Clear out — 
out of my house, both of you ! Thunder ! where is 
the gold ? what ’s become of the gold ? ” 

Eugenie rose, looked proudl3" at her father, and with- 
drew to her room. Grandet turned the key of the door. 

“ Nanon,” he cried, “ put out the fire in the hall.” 

Then he sat down in an armchair beside his wife^s 
fire and said to her, — 

“ Undoubted^ she has given the gold to that mis- 
erable seducer, Charles, who onlj' wanted our money.” 

“ I knew nothing about it,” she answered, turning 
to the other side of the bed, that she might escape 
the savage glances of her husband. “ I suffer so much 
from 3"our violence that I shall never leave this room, 
if I trust m}^ own presentiments, till I am carried out 
of it in my coffin. You ought to have spared me this 
suflTering, monsieur, — you, to whom I have caused no 


tJugSnie Grandet. 


223 


pain ; that is, I think so. Your daughter loves you. 
I believe her to be as innocent as the babe unborn. 
Do not make her wretched. Revoke j^our sentence. 
The cold is very severe ; you may give her some seri- 
ous illness.” 

“ I will not see her, neither will I speak to her. 
She shall stay in her room, on bread and water, until 
she submits to her father. What the devil ! should n’t 
a father know where the gold in his house has gone to? 
She owned the only rupees in France, perhaps, and 
the Dutch ducats and the genovines — ” 

“ Monsieur, Eugenie is our onlj" child ; and even if 
she had thrown them into the water — ” 

“Into the water!” cried her husband; “into the 
water ! You are crazy, Madame Grandet I What I 
have said is said ; you know that well enough. If you 
want peace in this household, make your daughter con- 
fess, pump it out of her. Women understand how 
to do that better than we do. Whatever she has done, 
I sha’n’t eat her. Is she afraid of me? Even if she 
has plastered Charles with gold from head to foot, he 
is on the high seas, and nobody can get at him, hein ! ” 

“But, monsieur — ” Excited by the nervous crisis 
through which she had passed, and by the fate of her 
daughter, which brought forth all her tenderness and 
all her powers of mind, Madame Grandet suddenly 
observed a frightful movement of her husband’s wen, 


224 


Eugenie Grandet, 


and, in the very act of replying, she changed her 
speech without changing the tones of her voice, — 
“But, monsieur, I have not more influence over her 
than you have. She has said nothing to me ; she takes 
after you.” 

“ Tut, tut ! Your tongue is hung in the middle this 
morning. Ta, ta, ta, ta ! You are setting me at defiance, 
I do believe. I daresay you are in league with her.” 

He looked fixedly at his wife. 

“ Monsieur Grandet, if you wish to kill me, jou 
have only to go on like this. I tell you, monsieur, — 
and if it were to cost me my life, I would say it, — 
you do wrong by your daughter; she is more in the 
right than you are. That mone}" belonged to her ; she 
is incapable of making any but a good use of ’T, and 
God alone has the right to know our good deeds. 
Monsieur, I implore you, take Eugenie back into favor ; 
forgive her. If you will do this you will lessen the 
injury your anger has done me ; perhaps 3"Ou will save 
mj’ life. M^^ daughter! oh, monsieur, give me back 
my daughter!” 

“ I shall decamp,” he said ; “ the house is not habi- 
table. A mother and daughter talking and arguing 
like that ! Broooouh ! Pouah ! A fine New Year’s 
present ^"ou’ve made me, Eugenie,” he called out. 
“Yes, 5^es, cry awa}" ! What ^^ou’ve done will bring 
you remorse, do you hear? What’s the good of taking 


Eugenie Grandet, 


225 


the sacrament six times every three months, if you give 
away your father’s gold secretly to an idle fellow who ’ll 
eat your heart out when you ’ve nothing else to give him ? 
You ’ll find out some day what your Charles is worth, 
with his morocco boots and supercilious airs. He has 
got neither heart nor soul if he dared to carry oflT a young 
girl’s treasure without the consent of her parents.” 

When the street-door was shut, Eugenie came out 
of her room and went to her mother. 

“What courage you have had for your daughter’s 
sake ! ” she said. 

“Ah! my child, see where forbidden things may 
lead us. You forced me to tell a lie.” 

“ I will ask God to punish only me.” 

“Is it true,” cried Nanon, rushing in alarmed, “ that 
mademoiselle is to be kept on bread and water for the 
rest of her life ? ” 

“What does that signify, Nanon?” said Eugenie 
tranquilly. 

“ Goodness ! do you suppose I ’ll ^2Xfrippe when the 
daughter of the house is eating dry bread? No, no ! ” 

“Don’t say a word about all this, Nanon,” said 
Eugenie. 

“ I ’ll be as mute as a fish ; but you ’ll see ! ” 

Grandet dined alone for the first time in twenty-four 


3'ears. 


15 


226 


Eugenie Grandet, 


“ So you ’re a widower, monsieur,” said Nanon ; “ it 
must be disagreeable to be a widower with two women 
in the house.” 

“I did not speak to you. Hold your jaw, or I’ll 
turn 3'OU off! What is that I hear boiling in your 
saucepan on the stove?” 

“ It is grease I ’m trying out.” 

“ There will be some company to-night. Light the 
fire.” 

The Cruchots, Madame des Grassins, and her son 
arrived at the usual hour of eight, and were surprised 
to see neither Madame Grandet nor her daughter. 

“ My wife is not verj’ well, and Eugenie is with 
her,” said the old wine-grower, whose face betrayed no 
emotion. 

At the end of an hour spent in idle conversation, 
Madame des Grassins, who had gone up to see Madame 
Grandet, came down, and every one inquued, — 

“ How is Madame Grandet?” 

“Not at all well,” she answered; “her condition 
seems to me reall3" alarming. At her age 3"ou ought to 
take ever3" precaution. Papa Grandet.” 

“ We’ll see about it,” said the old man in an absent 
way. 

They all wished him good-night. When the Cru- 
chots got into the street Madame des Grassins said to 
them, — 


Eugenie Grandet, 


227 


“There is something going on at the Grandets. 
The mother is very ill without her knowing it. The 
girl’s eyes are red, as if she had been crying all day. 
Can they be trying to marry her against her will ? ” 

When Grandet had gone to bed Nanon came softly 
to Eugenie’s room in her stockinged feet and showed 
her a pate baked in a saucepan. 

“ See, mademoiselle,” said the good soul, “ Cornoiller 
gave me a hare. You eat so little that this pate will 
last you full a week ; in such frosty weather it won’t 
spoil. You sha’n’t live on dry bread, I ’m determined ; 
it is n’t wholesome.” 

“ Poor Nanon ! ” said Eugenie, pressing her hand. 

“ I ’ve made it downright good and dainty, and he 
never found it out. I bought the lard and the spices 
out of my six francs : I ’m the mistress of my own 
money ; ” and she disappeared rapidly, fancying she 
heard Grandet. 


228 


EugSnie GrandeU 


XL 

For several months the old wine-grower came com 
stantly to his wife’s room at all hours of the day, with- 
out ever uttering his daughter’s name, or seeing her, 
or making the smallest allusion to her. Madame 
Grandet did not leave her chamber, and daily grew 
worse. Nothing softened the old man ; he remained 
unmoved, harsh, and cold as a granite rock. He con- 
tinued to go and come about his business as usual ; but 
he ceased to stutter, talked less, and was more obdu- 
rate in business transactions than ever before. Often 
he made mistakes in adding up his figures. 

“ Something is going on at the Grandets’,” said the 
Grassinists and the Cruchotines. 

“What has happened in the Grandet family?” be- 
came a fixed question which everybod}" asked every- 
body else at the little evening-parties of Saumur. 
Eugenie went to Mass escorted by Nanon. If Madame 
des Grassins said a few words to her on coming out of 
church, she answered in an evasive manner, without 
satisfying any curiosity. However, at the end of two 


EugSnie Grandet. 


229 


months it became impossible to hide, either from the 
three Cruchots or from Madame des Grassins, the fact 
that Eugenie was in confinement. There came a mo- 
ment when all pretexts failed to explain her perpetual 
absence. Then, though it was impossible to discover 
by whom the secret had been betrayed, all the town 
became aware that ever since New Year’s day Made- 
moiselle Grandet had been kept in her room without 
fire, on bread and water, by her father’s orders, and 
that Nanon cooked little dainties and took them to 
her secretly at night. It was even known that the 
young woman was not able to see or take care of her 
mother, except at certain times when her father was 
out of the house. 

Grandet’s conduct was severely condemned. The 
whole town outlawed him, so to speak ; they remem- 
bered his treachery, his hard-heartedness, and they ex- 
communicated him. When he passed along the streets, 
people pointed him out and muttered at him. When his 
daughter came down the winding street, accompanied 
by Nanon, on her way to Mass or Vespers, the inhab- 
itants ran to the windows and examined with intense 
curiosity the bearing of the rich heiress and her coun- 
tenance, which bore the impress of angeliy gentleness 
and melancholy. Her imprisonment and ythe condem- 
nation of her father were as nothing to her. Had she 
not a map of the world, the little bench, the garden, 


230 


Eugenie Grandet. 


the angle of the wall? Did she not taste upon her 
lips the honey that love’s kisses left there ? She was 
ignorant for a time that the town talked about her, 
just as Grandet himself was ignorant of it. Pious and 
pure in heart before God, her conscience and her love 
helped her to suffer patiently the wrath and vengeance 
of her father. 

One deep grief silenced all others. Her mother, 
that gentle, tender creature, made beautiful by the 
light which shone from the inner to the outer as she 
approached the tomb, — her mother was perishing from 
day to day. Eugenie often reproached herself as the 
innocent cause of the slow, cruel malady that was 
wasting her away. This remorse, though her mother 
soothed it, bound her still closer to her love. Every 
morning, as soon as her father left the house, she 
went to the bedside of her mother, and there Nanon 
brought her breakfast. The poor girl, sad, and suffer- 
ing through the sufferings of her mother, would turn her 
face to the old servant with a mute gesture, weep- 
ing, and yet not daring to speak of her cousin. It 
was Madame Grandet who first found courage to 
say, — 

“ Where is he? Why does he not write?” 

“ Let us think about him, mother, but not speak of 
him. You are ill — you, before all.” 

^‘4U” meant “him.” 


EugSnie GrandeL 


231 


“ My child,” said Madame Grandet, “ I do not wish 
to live. God protects me and enables me to look with 
joy to the end of my misery.” 

Every utterance of this woman was unfalteringly 
pious and Christian. Sometimes, during the first 
months of the year, when her husband came to break- 
fast with her and tramped up and down the room, she 
would say to him a few religious words, always spoken 
with angelic sweetness, yet with the firmness of a 
woman to whom approaching death lends a courage 
she had lacked in life. 

“ Monsieur, I thank you for the interest you take in 
my health,” she would answer when he made some 
commonplace inquiry; “but if you really desire to 
render my last moments less bitter and to ease my 
grief, take back your daughter : be a Christian, a hus- 
band, and a father.” 

When he heard these words, Grandet would sit 
down by the bed with the air of a man who sees the 
rain coming and quietly gets under the shelter of a 
gateway till it is over. When these touching, tender, 
and religious supplications had all been made, he 
would say, — 

“ You are rather pale to-day my poor wife.” 

Absolute forgetfulness of his daughter seemed graven 
on his stony brow, on his closed lips. He was un- 
moved by the tears which flowed down the white 


232 EugSnie Grandet, 

cheeks of his unhappy wife as she listened to his mean- 
ingless answers. 

“May God pardon you,” she said, “ even as I par- 
don you ! You will some day stand in need of 
mercy.” 

Since Madame Grandet’s illness he had not dared to 
make use of his terrible “ Ta, ta, ta, ta ! ” Yet, for all 
that, his despotic nature was not disarmed this angel 
of gentleness, whose ugliness day b}' day decreased, 
driven out by the ineffable expression of moral qualities 
which shone upon her face. She was all soul. The spirit 
of pra3’er seemed to purif}’ and refine those homely fea- 
tures and make them luminous. Who has not seen the 
phenomenon of a like transfiguration on sacred faces 
where the habits of the soul have triumphed over the 
plainest features, giving them that spiritual illumination 
whose light comes from the purity and nobility of the 
inward thought? The spectacle of this transformation 
wrought b}’ the struggle which consumed the last shreds 
of the human life of tliis woman, did somewhat affect 
the old cooper, though feebly, for his nature was of iron ; 
if his language ceased to be contemptuous, an imper- 
turbable silence, which saved his dignity as master of 
the household, took its [ lace and ruled his conduct. 

When the faithful Nanon appeared in the market, 
man}’ quips and quirks and complaints about the master 
whistled in her ears ; but however loudty public opinion 


EugSnie Grandet. 238 

condemned Monsieur Grandet, the old servanc defended 
him, for the honor of the famil 3 \ 

^‘Well!” she would say to his detractors, “don’t 
we all get hard as we grow old ? Why should n’t he 
get horny too ? Stop telling lies. Mademoiselle lives 
like a queen. She’s alone, that’s true ; but she likes it. 
Besides, my masters have good reasons.” 

At last, towards the end of spring, Madame Gran- 
det, worn out by grief even more than by illness, 
having failed, in spite of her prayers, to reconcile the 
father and daughter, confided her secret troubles to the 
Cruchots. 

“ Keep a girl of twenty- three on bread and water ! ” 
cried Monsieur de Bonfons ; “ without any reason, too ! 
Why, that constitutes wrongful cruelty ; she can pro- 
test, as much in as upon — ” 

“ Come, nephew, spare us your legal jargon,” said 
me notary. “Set your mind at ease, madame ; I 
will put a stop to such treatment to-morrow.” 

Eugenie, hearing herself mentioned, came out of her 
room. 

“ Gentlemen,” she said, coming forward with a 
proud step, “ I beg 3 "ou not to interfere in this matter. 
M}’ father is master in his own house. As long as I 
live under his roof I am bound to obe}" him. His con- 
duct is not subject to the approbation or the disapproba- 
tion of the world ; he is accountable to God only. 1 


234 


EugSnie Grandet, 


appeal to your friendship to keep total silence in thii 
affair. To blame my father is to attack our family 
honor. I am much obliged to you for the interest you 
have shown in me ; you will do me an additional ser- 
vice if you will put a stop to the offensive rumors 
which are current in the town, of which I am acci- 
dentally informed.” 

“ She is right,” said Madame Grandet. 

“ Mademoiselle, the best way to stop such rumors Is 
to procure your liberty,” answered the old notary 
respectfully, struck with the beauty which seclusion, 
melancholy, and love had stamped upon her face. 

“Well, my daughter, let Monsieur Cruchot manage 
the matter if he is so sure of success. He understands 
your father, and how to manage him. If you wish to 
see me happy for my few remaining days, you must, at 
any cost, be reconciled to your father.” 

On the morrow Grandet, in pursuance of a custom 
he had begun since Eugenie’s imprisonment, took a 
certain number of turns up and down the little garden ; 
he had chosen the hour when Eugenie brushed and 
arranged her hair. When the old man reached the 
walnut-tree he hid behind its trunk and remained for 
a few moments watching his daughter’s movements, 
hesitating, perhaps, between the course to which the 
obstinacy of his character impelled him and his nat- 
ural desire to embrace his child. Sometimes he sat 


Euginie QrandeL 


235 


down on the rotten old bench where Charles aijd Eu- 
genie had vowed eternal love ; and then she, too, looked 
at her father secretly in the mirror before which she 
stood. If he rose and continued his walk, she sat 
down obligingly at the window and looked at the angle 
of the wall where the pale flowers hung, where the 
Venus-hair grew from the crevices with the bindweed 
and the sedum, — a white or yellow stone-crop very 
abundant in the vineyards of Saumur and at Tours. 
Maitre Cruchot came early, and found the old wine- 
grower sitting in the fine June weather on the little 
bench, his back against the division wall of the gar- 
den, engaged in watching his daughter. 

“What may you want, Maitre Cruchot?” he said, 
perceiving the notary. 

“I came to speak to you on business.” 

“ Ah ! ah ! have you brought some gold in exchange 
for my silver?” 

“ No, no, I have not come about money ; it is about 
your daughter Eugenie. All the town is talking of 
her and of you.” 

“ What does the town meddle for? A man’s house 
is his castle.” 

“ Very true ; and a man may kill himself if he likes, 
or, what is worse, he may fling his money into the 
gutter.” 

“ What do you mean? ” 


236 


EugSnie Grandet. 


“ 5’our wife is veiy ill, my friend. You ought 
to consult Monsieur Bergerin ; she is likely to die. If 
she does die without receiving proper care, you will not 
be very easy in mind, I take it.” 

“ Ta, ta, ta, ta! you know a deal about my wife! 
These doctors, if they once get their foot in your 
house, will come five and six times a da3\” 

“ Of course you will do as 3^011 think best. We are 
old friends ; there is no one in all Saumur who takes 
more interest than I in what concerns 3^ou. There- 
fore, I was bound to tell 3’ou this. However, happen 
what ma3^, you have the right to do as you please ; 
3^ou can choose 3’our own course. Besides, that is not 
what brings me here. There is another thing which 
may have serious results for 3^00. After all, 3 0U can’t 
wish to kill 3’our wife ; her life is too important to 
you. Think of your situation in connection with 3’our 
daughter if Madame Grandet dies. You must render 
an account to Eugenie, because 3’ou enjo3" 3’our wife’s 
estate only during her lifetime. At her death 3’our 
daughter can claim a division of property, and she 
may force 3"ou to sell Froidfond. In short, she is her 
mother’s heir, and 3"Ou are not.” 

These words fell like a thunderbolt on the old man, 
who was not as wise about law as he was about busi- 
ness. He had never thought of a legal division of 
the estate. 


Eugime Grandet. 237 

“ Therefore I advise you to treat her kindly,” added 
Cruchot, in conclusion. 

“ But do 3"ou know what she has done, Cruchot? ” 

“What?” asked the notarj^ curious to hear the 
truth and find out the cause of the quarrel. 

“ She has given away her gold ! ” 

“ Well, was n’t it hers? ” said the notar}^ 

The}” all tell me that ! ” exclaimed the old man, let- 
ting his arms fall to his sides with a movement that was 
trulj" tragic. 

“Are 3’ou going — for a mere nothing,” — resumed 
Cruchot, “ to put obstacles in the wa}" of the conces- 
sions which 3^ou will be obliged to ask from your daugh- 
ter as soon as her mother dies ? ” 

“ Do 3'OU call six thousand francs a mere noth- 
ing?” 

“ He3^ ! my old friend, do j-ou know what the inveii- 
toiy of 3"Our wife’s propert3^ will cost, if Eugenie de- 
mands the division?” 

“ How much? ” 

“Two, three, four thousand francs, perhaps ! The 
propert3^ would have to be put up at auction and sold, 
to get at its actual value. Instead of that, if 3"OU are 
on good terms with — ” 

“ By the shears of my father! ” cried Grandet, turn- 
ing pale as he suddenl3’' sat down, “ we will see about 
it, Cruchot.” 


288 


EugSnie Crrandet, 


After a moment’s silence, full of anguish perhaps, 
the old man looked at the notary’ and said, — 

“ Life is very hard ! It has many griefs ! Cruchot,” 
he continued solemnly, “you would not deceive me? 
Swear to me upon your honor that all j^ou ’ve told me 
is legally true. Show me the law ; I must see the 
law ! ” 

“ My poor friend,” said the notary, “don’t I know 
my own business ? ” 

“ Then it is true ! I am robbed, betrayed, killed, 
destroyed by my own daughter ! ” 

“It is true that your daughter is her mother’s 
heir.” 

“ Why do we have children? Ah ! my wife, I love 
her ! Luckily she ’s sound and healthy ; she ’s a Ber- 
telliere.” 

“ She has not a month to live.” 

. Grandet struck his forehead, went a few steps, came 
back, cast a dreadful look on Cruchot, and said, — 

“ What can be done? ” 

“Eugenie can relinquish her claim to her mother’s 
property. Should she do this 3^ou would not disinherit 
her, I presume ? — but if you want to come to such a 
settlement, you must not treat her harshl3\ What I 
am telling 3^ou, old man, is against my own interests. 
What do I live by, if it is n’t liquidations, inventories, 
conveyances, divisions of property ? — ” 


Eugenie Grandet. 


239 


“ We ’ll see, we ’ll see ! Don’t let ’s talk any more 
about it, Cruchot ; it wrings my vitals. Have you 
received any gold ? ” 

“ No ; but I have a few old louis, a dozen or so, 
which you may have. My good friend, make it up 
with Eugenie. Don’t you know all Saumur is pelting 
you with stones ? ” 

“ The scoundrels ! ” 

“ Come, the Funds are at ninety-nine. Do be satis- 
fied for once in your life.” 

“ At ninety-nine ! Are they, Cruchot?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Hey, hey ! Ninety-nine ! ” repeated the old man, 
accompanying the notary to the street-door. Then, 
too agitated by what he had just heard to stay in the 
house, he went up to his wife’s room and said, — 

“ Come, mother, you may have your daughter to 
spend the day with you. I ’m going to Froidfond. 
Enjoy yourselves, both of you. This is our wedding- 
day, wife. See ! here are sixty francs for y^our altar at 
the Fete-Dieu ; you ’ve wanted one for a long time. 
Come, cheer up, enjoy yourself, and get well ! Hur- 
rah for happiness ! 

He threw ten silver pieces of six francs each upon 
the bed, and took his wife ’s head between his hands 
and kissed her forehead. 

“ My good wife, you are getting well, are not you?” 


240 


EugSnie Granaet. 


“ How can you think of receiving the God of mercy 
in your house when you refuse to forgive your daugh- 
ter?” she said with emotion. 

‘‘ Ta, ta, ta, ta! ” said Grandet in a coaxing voice. 
“ We ’ll see about that.” 

“Merciful heaven! Eugenie,” cried the mother, 
flushing with joy, “ come and kiss your father ; he for- 
gives you ! ” 

But the old man had disappeared. He was going as 

fast as his legs could carry him towards his vineyards, 

« 

trying to get his confused ideas into order. Grandet 
had entered his seventj’-sixth year. During the last 
two 3’ears his avarice had increased upon him, as all the 
persistent passions of men increase at a certain age. 
As if to illustrate an observation which applies equally 
to misers, ambitious men, and others whose lives are 
controlled by any dominant idea, his affections had 
fastened upon one special symbol of his passion. The 
sight of gold, the possession of gold, had become a 
monomania. His despotic spirit had grown in propor- 
tion to his avarice, and to part with the control of 
the smallest fraction of his propert}" at the death of 
his wife seemed to him a thing “against nature.” To 
declare his fortune to his daughter, to give an inven- 
tor\" of his propert}^ landed and personal, for the pur- 
poses of division — 

“ Why,” he cried aloud in the midst of a field where 


EugSnie Grandet. 241 

he was pretending to examine a vine, “ it would be 
cutting my throat ! ” 

He came at last to a decision, and returned to Sau- 
mur in time for dinner, resolved to unbend to Eugenie, 
and pet and coax her, that he might die regally, hold- 
ing the reins of his millions in his own hands so 
long as the breath was in his bod}^ At the moment 
when the old man, who chanced to have his pass-key 
in his pocket, opened the door and climbed with a 
stealthy step up the stairway to go into his wife’s room, 
Eugenie had brought the beautiful dressing-case from 
the oak cabinet and placed it on her mother’s bed. 
Mother and daughter, in Grandet’s absence, allowed 
themselves the pleasure of looking for a likeness to 
Charles in the portrait of his mother. 

“ It is exactly his forehead and his mouth,” Eugenie 
was saying as the old man opened the door. At the 
look which her husband cast upon the gold, Madame 
Grandet cried out, — 

“ O God, have pity upon us ! ” 

The old man sprang upon the box as a famished tiger 
might spring upon a sleeping child. 

“ What ’s this? ” he said, snatching the treasure and 
carr 3 dng it to the window. “Gold, good gold!” he 
cried. “ All gold, — it weighs two pounds I Ha, ha I 
Charles gave 3 ^ou that for your money, did he ? Hein ! 
Why did n’t you tell me so? It was a good bargain, 


242 


Eugenie Grandet, 


little one ! Yes, you are my daughter, I see that — ** 
Eugenie trembled in every limb. “ This came from 
Charles, of course, did n’t it?” continued the old man. 

“ Yes, father ; it is not mine. It is a sacred trust.” 

“ Ta, ta, ta, ta ! He took your fortune, and now 
you can get it back.” 

“ Father ! ” 

Grandet took his knife to pry out some of the gold ; 
to do this, he placed the dressing-case on a chair. Eu- 
genie sprang forward to recover it ; but her father, who 
had his eye on her and on the treasure too, pushed her 
back so violently with a thrust of his arm that she 
fell upon her mother’s bed. 

“Monsieur, monsieur!” cried the mother, lifting 
herself up. 

Grandet had opened his knife, and was about to 
apply it to the gold. 

‘ ‘ Father ! ” cried Eugenie, falling on her knees and 
dragging herself close to him with clasped hands, 
“ father, in the name of all the saints and the Virgin ! 
in the name of Christ who died upon the cross ! in the 
name of your eternal salvation, father ! for my life’s 
sake, father I — do not touch that ! It is neither yours 
nor mine. It is a trust placed in my hands by an un- 
happy relation : I must give it back to him uninjured ! ” 

“ If it is a trust, why were 30U looking at it? Tc 
look at it is as bad as touching it” 


EugSnie Grandet, 


243 


“Father, don’t destroy it, or you will disgrace me! 
Father, do you hear ? ” 

“ Oh, have pity ! ” said the mother. 

“Father!” cried Eugenie in so startling a voice 
that Nanon ran upstairs terrified. Eugenie sprang 
upon a knife that was close at hand. 

“Well, what now?” said Grandet coldly, with a 
callous smile. 

“ Oh, you are killing me ! ” said the mother. 

“ Father, if your knife so much as cuts a fragment of 
that gold, I will stab myself with this one ! You have 
already driven my mother to her death ; you will now 
kill your child ! Do as you choose ! Wound for 
wound ! ” 

Grandet held his knife over the dressing-case and 
hesitated as he looked at his daughter. 

“ Are you capable of doing it, Eugenie? ” he said. 

“ Yes, yes ! ” said the mother. 

“ She ’ll do it if she says so ! ” cried Nanon. “ Be 
reasonable, monsieur, for once in your life,” 

The old man looked at the gold and then at his 
daughter alternately for an instant. Madame Grandet 
fainted. 

“There! don’t you see, monsieur, that madame is 
dying?” cried Nanon. 

“ Come, come, my daughter, we won’t quarrel for a 
box ! Here, take it I ” he cried hastily, flinging the case 


244 


EugSnie Grayidet. 


upon the bed. “ Nanon, go and fetch Monsieur Ber- 
gerin ! Come, mother,” said he, kissing his wife’s 
hand, “ it ’s all over ! There ! we ’ve made up — have n’t 
we, little one? No more dr}’ bread ; 3’ou shall have all 
you want — Ah, she opens her e3’es ! Well, mother, 
little mother, come ! See, I ’m kissing Eugenie ! She 
loves her cousin, and she may marrj’ him if she wants 
to ; she may keep his case. But don’t die, mother ; live 
a long time yet, my poor wife ! Come, try to move ! 
Listen ! you shall have the finest altar that ever was 
made in Saumur.” 

“ Oh, how can 3’ou treat 3’our wife and daughter so ! ” 
said Madame Grandet in a feeble voice. 

“ I won’t do so again, never again,” cried her hus- 
band ; “ you shall see, my poor wife ! ” He went to his 
inner room and returned with a handful of louis, which 
he scattered on the bed. “ Here, Eugenie ! see, wife! 
all these are for 3’ou,” he said, fingering the coins. 
“Come, be happ}", wife! feel better, get well; you 
sha’n’t want for an3’thing, nor Eugenie either. Here ’s 
a hundred louis d’or for her. You won’t give these 
awa}^ will 3’ou, Eugenie, hein?” 

Madame Grandet and her daughter looked at each 
other in astonishment. 

“ Take back 3’our mone}^, father ; we ask for noth- 
ing but 3’our affection.” 

“Well, well, that’s right!” he said, pocketing the 


EugSnie Grandet. 


245 


coins ; “ let’s be good friends ! We will all go down to 
dinner to-daj, and we ’ll pla}’ loto every evening for 
two sous. You shall both be happ3\ Hey, wife? ” 

“ Alas ! I wish I could, if it would give 3'OU pleas- 
ure,” said the d3ing woman ; “ but I cannot rise from 
my bed.” 

“Poor mother,” said Grandet, “3^ou don’t know 
how I love 3"Ou ! and 3'ou too, m3’ daughter ! ” He took 
her in his arms and kissed her. “ Oh, how good it is 
to kiss a daughter when we have been angr3’ with her ! 
There, mother, don’t 3’ou see it’s all over now? Go 
and put that awa3’, Eugenie,” he added, pointing to the 
case. “ Go, don’t be afraid ! I shall never speak of it 
again, never !” 

Monsieur Bergerin, the celebrated doctor of Saumur, 
presently arrived. After an examination, he told 
Grandet positivel3’ that his wife was very ill ; but that 
perfect peace of mind, a generous diet, and great care 
might prolong her life until the autumn. 

“Will all that cost much?” said the old man. 
“ Will she need medicines?” 

“ Not much medicine, but a great deal of care,” an- 
swered the doctor, who could scarcely restrain a smile. 

“ Now, Monsieur Bergerin,” said Grandet, “ 3’ou are 
a man of honor, are not you ? I trust to 3’ou ! Come 
and see m3^ wife how and when 3’ou think necessary. 
Save my good wife ! I love her, — don’t 3^ou see ? — 


246 


EugSnie Grandet. 


though I never talk about it ; I keep things to myself. 
I ’m full of trouble. Troubles began when my brother 
died ; I have to spend enormous sums on his affairs in 
Paris. Why, I ’ra paying through my nose ; there ’s no 
end to it. Adieu, monsieur ! If you can save my wife, 
save her. I ’ll spare no expense, not even if it costs me 
a hundred or two hundred francs.” 

In spite of Grandet’s fervent wishes for the health of 
his wife, whose death threatened more than death to 
him ; in spite of the consideration he now showed on all 
occasions for the least wish of his astonished wife and 
daughter ; in spite of the tender care which Eugenie lav- 
ished upon her mother, — Madame Grandet rapidly 
approached her end. Every day she grew weaker and 
wasted visiblj^, as women of her age when attacked 
bj’ serious illness are wont to do. She was fragile as 
the foliage in autumn ; the radiance of heaven shone 
through her as the sun strikes athwart the withering 
leaves and gilds them. It was a death worthy of her 
life, — a Christian death ; and is not that sublime? In 
the month of October, 1822, her virtues, her angelic 
patience, her love for her daughter, seemed to find spe- 
cial expression ; and then she passed away without a 
murmur. Lamb without spot, she went to heaven, re- 
gi'etting only the sweet companion of her cold and 
dreary life, for whom her last glance seemed to proph- 
esy a destiny of sorrows. She shrank from leaving her 


EugSnie Grandet. 


24t 


ewe-lamb, white as herself, alone in the midst of a 
selfish world that sought to strip her of her fleece and 
grasp her treasures. 

“ My child,” she said as she expired, “ there is no 
happiness except in hea^^en • you will know it some 
day.'* 


248 


^ugSnu Grandet, 


Xll. 

On the morrow of this death Eugenie felt a new mo» 
tive for attachment to the house in which she was born, 
where she had suffered so much, where her mother had 
just died. She could not see the window and the chair 
on its castors without weeping. She thought she had 
mistaken the heart of her old father when she found 
herself the object of his tenderest cares. He came in 
the morning and gave her his arm to take her to 
breakfast ; he looked at her for hours together with an 
eye that was almost kind ; he brooded over her as 
though she had been gold. The old man was so unlike 
himself, he trembled so often before his daughter, that 
Nanon and the Cruchotines, who witnessed his weak- 
ness, attributed it to his great age, and feared that his 
faculties were giving away. But the day on which the 
family put on their mourning, and after dinner, to which 
meal Maitre Cruchot (the only person who knew his 
secret) had been invited, the conduct of the old miser 
was explained. 

“My dear child,” he said to Eugenie when the 
table had been cleared and the doors carefully" shut. 


EugSnie GrandeL 


249 


“you are now your mother’s heiress, and we have a 
few little matters to settle between us. Is n’t that so, 
Cruchot?” 

“Yes.” 

“ Is it necessary to talk of them to-day, father? 

“ Yes, yes, little one ; I can’t bear the uncertainty 
in which I ’m placed. I think you don’t want to give 
me pain ? ” 

“Oh! father — ” 

“Well, then ! let us settle it all to-night.” 

“ What is it you wish me to do? ” 

“ My little girl, it is not for me to say. Tell her, 
Cruchot.” 

“ Mademoiselle, your father does not wish to divide 
the property, nor sell the estate, nor pay enormous 
taxes on the ready money which he may possess. 
Therefore, to avoid all this, he must be released from 
making the inventory of his whole fortune, part of which 
you inherit from your mother, and which is now undi- 
vided between 3'Ou and your father — ” 

“ Cruchot, are you quite sure of what you are saying 
before you tell it to a mere child ? ” 

“ Let me tell it my own way, Grandet.” 

“ Yes, yes, my friend. Neither you nor my daughter 
wish to rob me, — do you, little one ? ” 

“But, Monsieur Cruchot, what am I to do?” said 
Eugenie impatiently. 


250 


EugSnie GrandeU 


“ Well,” said the notary, “ it is necessary to sign this 
deed, by which you renounce your rights to your moth- 
er’s estate and leave your father the use and disposition, 
during his lifetime, of all the property undivided between 
you, of which he guarantees you the capital.” 

“I do not understand a word of what you are say- 
ing,” returned Eugenie ; “ give me the deed, and show 
me where I am to sign it.” 

Pere Grandet looked alternately at the deed and at 
his daughter, at his daughter and at the deed, under- 
going as he did so such violent emotion that he wiped 
the sweat from his brow. 

“ My little girl,” he said, “if, instead of signing this 
deed, which will cost a great deal to record, you 
would simply agree to renounce your rights as heir 
to your poor dear, deceased mother’s propert}", and 
would trust to me for the future, I should like it better. 
In that case I will pa}" you monthly the good round 
sum of a hundred francs. See, now, you could pay for 
as many masses as you want for anybody — Hein ! a 
hundred francs a month — in livres f ” 

“ I will do all you wish, father.” 

“Mademoiselle,” said the notary, “it is my duty to 
point out to you that you are despoiling yourself with- 
out guarantee — ” 

“ Good heavens ! what is all that to me? ” 

‘ ‘ Hold your tongue, Cruchot ! It ’s settled, all settled,” 


EugSnie Grander 


251 


cned Grandet, taking his daughter’s hand and striking 
it with his own. “ Eugenie, j^ou won’t go back on your 
word ? — you are an honest girl, hein ? ” 

“Oh! father! — ” 

He kissed her effusively, and pressed her in his arms 
tiU he almost choked her. 

“Go, my good child, you restore j^our father’s life; 
but 3"OU only return to him that which he gave you : we 
are quits. This is how business should be done. Life 
is a business. I bless you ! j^ou are a virtuous girl, and 
you love your father. Do just what you like in future. 
To-morrow, Cruchot,” he added, looking at the horrified 
notary, “ you will see about preparing the deed of 
relinquishment, and then enter it on the records of 
the court.” 

The next morning Eugenie signed the papers by 
which she herself completed her spoliation. At the end 
of the first year, however, in spite of his bargain, the 
old man had not given his daughter one sou of the hun- 
dred francs he had so solemnly pledged to her. When 
Eugenie pleasantly reminded him of this, he could not 
help coloring, and went hastily to his secret hiding- 
place, from whence he brought down about a third of 
the jewels he had taken from his nephew, and gave them 
to her. 

“ There, little one,” he said in a sarcastic tone, “ do 
you want those for your twelve hundred francs ? ” 


252 EugSnie Grandet, 

“Oh! father, truly? will you really give them to 
me?’* 

“I’ll give you as many more next year,” he said, 
throwing them into her apron. “ So before long you ’ll 
get all his gewgaws,” he added, rubbing his hands, 
delighted to be able to speculate on his daughter’s 
feelings. 

Nevertheless, the old man, though still robust, felt 
the importance of initiating his daughter into the secrets 
of his thrift and its management. For two consecutive 
years he made her order the household meals in his 
presence and receive the rents, and he taught her slowly 
and successively the names and remunerative capacity 
of his vineyards and his farms. About the third year 
he had so thoroughly accustomed her to his avaricious 
methods that they had turned into the settled habits 
of her own life, and he was able to leave the household 
keys in her charge without anxiety", and to install he** 
as mistress of the house. 

Five years passed away without a single event to 
relieve the monotonous existence of Eugenie and her 
father. The same actions were performed daily with 
the automatic regularity of clockwork. The deep sad- 
ness of Mademoiselle Grandet was known to every 
one *, but if others surmised the cause, she herself never 
uttered a word that justified the suspicions which all 


EugSnie Grandet. 253 

Saumur entertained about the state of the rich heiress’s 
heart. Her only society was made up of the three 
Cruchots and a few of their particular friends whom 
they had, little by little, introduced into the Grandet 
household. They had taught her to play whist, and 
they came every night for their game. During the year 
1827 her father, feeling the weight of his infirmities, 
was obliged to initiate her still further into the secrets 
of his landed property, and told her that in case of 
difficulty she was to have recourse to Maitre Cruchot, 
whose integrity was well known to him. 

Towards the end of this year the old man, then 
eighty-two, was seized by paralysis, which made rapid 
progress. Dr. Bergerin gave him up. Eugenie, feel- 
ing that she was about to be left alone in the world, 
came, as it were, nearer to her father, and clasped more 
tightly this last living link of affection. To her mind, 
as in that of all loving women, love was the whole Cx 
life. Charles was not there, and she devoted all her 
care and attention to the old father, whose faculties had 
begun to weaken, though his avarice remained instinc- 
tively acute. The death of this man offered no contrast 
to his life. In the morning he made them roll him to 
a spot between the chimney of his chamber and the 
door of the secret room, which was filled, no doubt, 
with gold. He asked for an explanation of every noise 
he heard, even the slightest ; to the great astonishment 


i 


254 


EugSnie GrandeL 


of the notar}’, he even heard the watch-dog yawning in 
the court-yard. He woke up from his apparent stupor 
at the day and hour when the rents were due, or when 
accounts had to be settled with his vine-dressers, and 
receipts given. At such times he worked his chair 
forward on its castors until he faced the door of the 
inner room. He made his daughter open it, and 
watched while she placed the bags of money one upon 
another in his secret receptacles and relocked the 
door. Then she returned silently to her seat, after giv- 
ing him the key, which he replaced in his waistcoat 
pocket and fingered from time to time. His old friend 
the notary, feeling sure that the rich heiress would 
inevitably marry his nephew the president, if Charles 
Grandet did not return, redoubled all his attentions ; 
he came every day to take Grande t’s orders, went on 
his errands to Froidfond, to the farms and the fields 
and the vineyards, sold the vintages, and turned every- 
thing into gold and silver, which found their way in 
sacks to the secret hiding-place. 

At length the last struggle came, in which the strong 
frame of the old man slowly yielded to destruction. 
He was determined to sit at the chimney-corner facing 
the door of the secret room. He drew off and rolled up 
all the coverings which were laid over him, saying to 
Nanon, “Put them away, lock them up, for fear they 
should be stolen.” 


EugSnie Grandet, 


255 


So long as he could open his eyes, in which his whole 
being had now taken refuge, he turned them to the door 
behind which lay his treasures, saying to his daughter, 
‘ ‘ Are they there ? are they there ? ” in a tone of voice 
which revealed a sort of panic fear. 

“ Yes, my father,” she would answer. 

“ Take care of the gold — put gold before me.” 

Eugenie would then spread coins on a table before 
him, and he would sit for hours together with his ej^es 
fixed upon them, like a child who, at the moment 
it first begins to see, gazes in stupid contemplation at 
the same object, and like the child, a distressful smile 
would flicker upon his face. 

“ It warms me ! ” he would sometimes say, as an 
expression of beatitude stole across his features. 

When the cure of the parish came to administer the 
last sacraments, the old man’s e3^es, sightless, appa- 
rently, for some hours, kindled at the sight of the cross, 
the candlesticks, and the hol^^-water vessel of silver; 
he gazed at them fixedly, and his wen moved for the 
last time. When the priest put the crucifix of silver-gilt 
to his lips, that he might kiss the Christ, he made a 
frightful gesture, as if to seize it ; and that last effort 
cost him his life. He called Eugenie, whom he did not 
see, though she was kneeling beside him bathing with 
tears his stiffening hand, which was already cold. 

“ My father, bless me ! ” she entreated. 


256 EugSnie Crrandet. 

“ Take care of it all. You will render me an account 
yonder ! ” he said, proving by these last words that 
Christianity must always be the religion of misers. 

Eugenie Grandet was now alone in the world in that 
gray house, with none but Nanon to whom she could 
turn with the certainty of being heard and understood, 
— Nanon the sole being who loved her for herself and 
with whom she could speak of her sori’ows. La Grande 
Nanon was a providence for Eugenie. She was not a 
servant, but a humble friend. After her father’s death 
Eugenie learned from Maitre Cruchot that she possessed 
an income of three hundred thousand francs from landed 
and personal property in the arrondissement of Saumur ; 
also six millions invested at three per cent in the 
Funds (bought at sixty, and now worth seventy-six 
francs) ; also two millions in gold coin, and a hundred 
thousand francs in silver crown -pieces, besides all the 
interest which was still to be collected. The sum total 
of her property reached seventeen millions. 

“ Where is my cousin?” was her one thought. 

The day on which Maitre Cruchot handed in to his 
client a clear and exact schedule of the whole inheritance, 
Eugenie remained alone with Nanon, sitting beside the 
fireplace in the vacant hall, where all was now a mem- 
ory, from the chair on castors which her mother had sat 
in, to the glass from which her cousin drank. 


Euaenie Grandet, 


261 


“ Nanon, we are alone — ” 

‘‘ Yes, mademoiselle ; and if I knew where he was, 
the darling, I ’d go on foot to find him.” 

“ The ocean is between us,” she said. 

While the poor heiress wept in company of an old 
servant, in that cold, dark house, which was to her 
the universe, the whole province rang, from Nantes to 
Orleans, with the seventeen millions of Mademoiselle 
Grandet. Among her first acts she had settled an 
annuity of twelve hundred francs on Nanon, who, 
already possessed of six hundred more, became a rich 
and enviable match. In less than a month that good 
soul passed from single to wedded life under the protec- 
tion of Antoine Cornoiller, who was appointed keeper 
of all Mademoiselle Grandet’s estates. Madame Cor- 
noiller possessed one striking advantage over her con- 
temporaries. Although she was fiftj^-nine years of age, 
she did not look more than forty. Her strong features 
had resisted the ravages of time. Thanks to the healthy 
customs of her semi-conventual life, she laughed at old 
age from the vantage-ground of a rosy skin and an iron 
constitution. Perhaps she never looked as well in her 
life as she did on her marriage-day. She had all the 
benefits of her ugliness, and was big and fat and strong, 
with a look of happiness on her indestructible featurei? 
which made a good many people envy Cornoiller. 

“ Fast colors ! ” said the draper. 

It 


258 


EugSnie GrandeU 


“Quite likely to have children/' said the salt mer- 
chant. “ She ’s pickled in brine, saving your pres- 
ence.” 

“ She is rich, and that fellow Cornoiller has done a 
good thing for himself,” said a third man. 

When she came forth from the old house on her waj’ 
to the parish church, Nanon, who was loved by aU 
the neighborhood, received many compliments as she 
walked down the tortuous street. Eugenie had given 
her three dozen silver forks and spoons as a wedding 
present. Cornoiller, amazed at such magnificence, 
spoke of his mistress with tears in his eyes ; he would 
willingly have been hacked in pieces in her behalf. 
Madame Cornoiller, appointed housekeeper to Made- 
moiselle Grandet, got as much happiness out of her new 
position as she did from the possession of a husband. 
She took charge of the weekly accounts ; she locked 
up the provisions and gave them out daily, after the 
manner of her defunct master ; she ruled over two 
servants, — a cook, and a maid whose business it was 
to mend the house-linen and make mademoiselle's 
dresses. Cornoiller combined the functions of keeper 
and bailiff. It is unnecessar}- to say that the women- 
servants selected by Nanon were “ perfect treasures.” 
Mademoiselle Grandet thus had four servants, whose 
devotion was unbounded. The farmers perceived no 
change after Monsieur Grandet's death ; the usages and 


EugSnie GrandeL 


259 


customs he had sternly established were scrupulously 
carried out by Monsieur and Madame Cornoiller. 

At thirty years of age Eugenie knew none of the 
joys of life. Her pale, sad childhood had glided on be- 
side a mother whose heart, alwa^^s misunderstood and 
wounded, had known only suffering. Leaving this life 
joyfully, the mother pitied the daughter because she 
still must live ; and she left in her child’s soul some 
fugitive remorse and many lasting regrets. Eugenie’s 
first and only love was a wellspring of sadness within 
her. Meeting her lover for a few brief days, she had 
given him her heart between two kisses furtively ex- 
changed ; then he had left her, and a whole world lay 
between them. This love, cursed by her father, had 
cost the life of her mother and brought her only sor- 
row, mingled with a few frail hopes. Thus her upward 
spring towards happiness had wasted her strength and 
given her nothing in exchange for it. In the life of 
the soul, as in the physical life, there is an Inspiration 
and a respiration ; the soul needs to absorb the senti- 
ments of another soul and assimilate them, that it may 
render them back enriched. Were it not for this glori- 
ous human phenomenon, there would be no life for the 
heart ; air would be wanting ; it would suffer, and then 
perish. Eug(^nie had begun to suffer. For her, wealth 
was neither a power nor a consolation ; she could not 
live except through love, through religion, through 


260 


EugSnie Grandet, 


faith in the future. Love explained to her the myste- 
ries of eternity. Her heart and the Gospel taught her 
to know two worlds ; she bathed, night and da}^ in the 
depths of two infinite thoughts, which for her ma}’ have 
had but one meaning. She drew back within herself, 
loving, and believing herself beloved. For seven years 
her passion had invaded everything. Her treasures 
were not the millions whose revenues were rolling up ; 
they were Charles’s dressing-case, the portraits hanging 
above her bed, the jewels recovered from her father 
and proudly spread upon a bed of wool in a drawer of 
the oaken cabinet, the thimble of her aunt, used for 
a while by her mother, which she wore religiously as 
she worked at a piece of embroider^-, — a Penelope’s 
web, begun for the sole purpose of putting upon her 
finger that gold so rich in memories. 

It seemed unlikel}^ that Mademoiselle Grandet would 
marrj' during the period of her mourning. Her genu- 
ine piety was well known. Consequently the Cru- 
chots, whose policy was sagely guided by the old abbe, 
contented themselves for the time being with surround- 
ing the great heiress and pa3ung her the most aflTec- 
tionate attentions. Ever}" evening the hall was filled 
with a party of devoted Cruchotines, who sang the 
praises of its mistress in every key. She had her doc- 
tor in ordinary, her grand almoner, her chamberlain, 
her first lady of honor, her prime minister ; above all, 


EugSnie Grandet. 


261 


her chancellor, a chancellor who would fain have said 
much to her. If the heiress had wished for a train- 
bearer, one would instantly have been found. She was 
a queen, obsequiously flattered. Flattery never ema- 
nates from noble souls ; it is the gift of little minds, who 
thus still further belittle themselves to worm their way 
into the vital being of the persons around whom they 
crawl. Flattery means self-interest. So the people 
who, night after night, assembled in Mademoiselle 
Grandet’s house (they called her Mademoiselle de Froid- 
fond) outdid each other in expressions of admiration. 
This concert of praise, never before bestowed upon 
Eugenie, made her blush under its novelty ; but insen- 
sibly her ear became habituated to the sound, and how- 
ever coarse the compliments might be, she soon was 
so accustomed to hear her beauty lauded that if any 
new-comer had seemed to think her plain, she would 
have felt the reproach far more than she might have 
done eight years earlier. She ended at last by loving 
the incense, which she secretly laid at the feet of her 
idol. By degrees she grew accustomed to be treated 
as a sovereign and to see her court pressing around 
her every evening. 

Monsieur de Bonfons was the hero of the little circle, 
where his wit, his person, his education, his amia- 
bility, were perpetually praised. One or another would 
remark that in seven years he had largely increased 


262 


EugSnie Grandet, 


his fortune, that Bonfons brought in at least ten thou* 
sand francs a year, and was surrounded, like the other 
possessions of the Cruchots, by the vast domains of 
the heiress. 

“Do you know, mademoiselle,” said an habitual 
visitor, “that the Cruchots have an income of fort}" 
thousand francs among them?” 

“And then, their savings!” exclaimed an elderly 
female Cruchotine, Mademoiselle de Gribeaucourt. 

“A gentleman from Paris has lately offered Mon- 
sieur Cruchot two hundred thousand francs for his 
practice,” said another. “ He will sell it if he is 
appointed juge de paix,*^ 

‘ ‘ He wants to succeed Monsieur de Bonfons as pres- 
ident of the Civil courts, and is taking measures,” 
replied Madame d’Orsonval. “Monsieur le president 
will certainly be made councillor.” 

“Yes, he is a very distinguished man,” said an- 
other, — “ don’t you think so, mademoiselle?” 

Monsieur de Bonfons endeavored to put himself in 
keeping with the role he sought to play. In spite of 
his forty years, in spite of his dusk}- and crabbed fea- 
tures, withered like most judicial faces, he dressed in 
3’outhful fashions, toyed with a bamboo cane, never 
took snuff in Mademoiselle de Froidfond’s house, and 
came in a white cravat and a shirt whose pleated frill 
gave him a family resemblance to the race of turkeys. 


Euginie Grandet. 263 

He addressed the beautiful heiress familiarly, and 
spoke of her as “Our dear Eugenie.” In short, ex- 
cept for the number of visitors, the change from loto 
to whist, and the disappearance of Monsieur and Ma- 
dame Grandet, the scene was about the same as the one 
with which this history opened. The pack were still 
pursuing Eugenie and her millions ; but the hounds, 
more in number, lay better on the scent, and beset the 
prey more unitedly. If Charles could have dropped 
from the Indian Isles, he would have found the same 
people and the same interests. Madame des Grassins, 
to whom Eugenie was full of kindness and courtes}’, 
still persisted in tormenting the Cruchots. Eugenie, 
as in former daj’s, was the central figure of the pic- 
ture ; and Charles, as heretofore, would still have 
been the sovereign of all. Yet there had been some 
progress. The fiowers which the president formerly 
presented to Eugenie on her birthdays and fete-days 
had now become a daily institution. Every evening he 
brought the rich heiress a huge and magnificent bou- 
quet, which Madame Cornoiller placed conspicuously in 
a vase, and secretly threw into a corner of the court- 
yard when the visitors had departed. 

Early in the spring, Madame des Grassins attempted 
to trouble the peace of the Cruchotines by talking to 
Eugenie of the Marquis de Froidfond, whose ancient 
and ruined family might be restored if the heiress would 


264 


EugSnie Grandet, 


give him back his estates through marriage. Madame 
des Grassins rang the changes on the peerage and the 
title of marquise, until, mistaking Eugenie’s disdainful 
smile for acquiescence, she went about proclaiming that 
the marriage with ‘‘ Monsieur Cruchot ” was not nearly 
as certain as people thought. 

“ Though Monsieur de Froidfond is fifty,” she said, 
“ he does not look older than Monsieur Cruchot. He 
is a widower, and he has children, that’s true. But 
then he is a marquis ; he will be peer of France ; and 
in times like these where will you find a better match? 
I know it for a fact that Pere Grandet, when he put all 
his money into Froidfond, intended to graft himself 
upon that stock ; he often told me so. He was a deep 
one, that old man ! ” 

“Ah! Nanon,” said Eugenie, one night as she was 
going to bed, “how is it that in seven years he has 
never once written to me?” 


Euy4nie GrandeU 


266 


xni. 

While these events were happening at Saumur, 
Charles was making his fortune in the Indies. His 
commercial outfit had sold well. He began by realizing 
a sum of six thousand dollars. Crossing the line had 
brushed a good many cobwebs out of his brain; he 
perceived that the best means of attaining fortune in 
tropical regions, as well as in Europe, was to buy and 
sell men. He went to the coast of Africa and bought 
negroes, combining his traffic in human flesh with that 
of other merchandise equally advantageous to his in- 
terests. He carried into this business an activity 
which left him not a moment of leisure. He was gov- 
erned by the desire of reappearing in Paris with all the 
prestige of a large fortune, and by the hope of regain- 
ing a position even more brilliant than the one from 
which he had fallen. 

By dint of jostling with men, travelling through many 
lands, and studying a variety of conflicting customs, 
his ideas had been modified and had become sceptical. 
He ceased to have fixed principles of right and wrong, 
for he saw what was called a crime in one country 


266 


Eugenie Grandet, 


lauded as a virtue in another. In the perpetual strug* 
gle of selfish interests his heart grew cold, then con- 
tracted, and then dried up. The blood of the Grandets 
did not fail of its destiny ; Charles became hard, and 
eager for prey. He sold Chinamen, negroes, birds’ 
nests, children, artists ; he practised usury on a large 
scale ; the habit of defrauding custom-houses soon 
made him less scrupulous about the rights of his fellow- 
men. He went to the Island of St. Thomas and 
bought, for a mere song, merchandise that had been 
captured by pirates, and took it to ports where he 
could sell it at a good price. If the pure and noble 
face of Eugenie went with him on his first voyage, like 
that image of the Virgin which Spanish mariners fas- 
ten to their masts, if he attributed his first success to 
the magic influence of the praj’ers and intercessions of 
his gentle love, later on women of other kinds, — blacks, 
mulattoes, whites, and Indian dancing-girls, — orgies 
and adventures in many lands, completely effaced all 
recollection of his cousin, of Saumur, of the house, 
the bench, the kiss snatched in the dark passage. He 
remembered only the little garden shut in with crumb- 
ling walls, for it was there he learned the fate that 
had overtaken him ; but he rejected all connection with 
the famil}’. His uncle was an old dog who had filched 
his jewels ; Eugenie had no place in his heart nor in 
his thoughts, though she did have a place in his 


Eugenie Grandet. 267 

accounts as a creditor for the sum of six thousand 
francs. 

Such conduct and such ideas explain Charles Gran- 
det’s silence. In the Indies, at St. Thomas, on the 
coast of Africa, at Lisbon, and in the United States 
the adventurer had taken the pseudonym of Shepherd, 
that he might not compromise his own name. Charles 
Shepherd could safely be indefatigable, bold, grasping, 
and greed}' of gain, like a man who resolves to snatch 
his fortune quibus cumque viis^ and makes haste to 
have done with villany, that he may spend the rest of 
his life as an honest man. 

With such methods, prosperity was rapid and bril- 
liant ; and in 1827 Charles Grandet returned to Bor- 
deaux on the “ Marie Caroline,” a fine brig belonging 
to a royalist house of business. He brought with him 
nineteen hundred thousand francs worth of gold-dust, 
from which he expeeted to derive seven or eight per 
cent more at the Paris mint. On the brig he met 
a gentleman-in-ordinary to His Majesty Charles X., 
Monsieur d’Aubrion, a worthy old man who had com- 
mitted the folly of marrying a woman of fashion with 
a fortune derived from the West India Islands. To 
meet the costs of Madame d’Aubrion’s extravagance, 
he had gone out to the Indies to sell the property, and 
was now returning with his family to France. 

Monsieur and Madame d’Aubrion, of the house of 


268 


EugSnie GrandeL 


d’Aubrion de Buch, a family of southern France, whose 
last captain or chief, died before 1789, were now re- 
duced to an income of about twenty thousand francs, 
and they possessed an ugly daughter whom the mother 
was resolved to marry without a dot.^ — the family for- 
tune being scarcely sufficient for the demands of her 
own life in Paris. This was an enterprise whose suc- 
cess might have seemed problematical to most men of 
the world, in spite of the cleverness with which such 
men credit a fashionable woman ; in fact, Madame 
d’Aubrion herself, when she looked at her daughter, 
almost despaired of getting rid of her to any one, even 
to a man craving connection with nobility. Mademoi- 
selle d’Aubrion was a long, spare, spindling demoiselle, 
like her namesake the insect ; her mouth was disdainful ; 
over it hung a nose that was too long, thick at the end, 
sallow in its normal condition, but very red after a 
meal, — a sort of vegetable phenomenon which is par- 
ticularly disagreeable when it appears in the middle of 
a pale, dull, and uninteresting face In one sense she 
was all that a worldly mother, thirty-eight years of age 
and still a beauty with claims to admiration, could have 
wished. However, to counterbalance her personal de- 
fects, the marquise gave her daughter a distinguished 
air, subjected her to hj’gienic treatment which provi- 
sionally kept her nose at a reasonable flesh-tint, taught 
her the art of dressing well, endowed her with charm- 


Mug6nie Grandet. 


269 


ing inanDers, showed her the trick of melancholy 
glances which interest a man and make him believe 
that he has found a long-sought angel, taught her the 
manoeuvre of the foot, — letting it peep beneath the 
petticoat, to show its tiny size, at the moment when 
the nose became aggressivelj* red ; in short, Madame 
d’Aubrion had cleverly made the very best of her 
offspring. By means of full sleeves, deceptive pads, 
puffed dresses amply trimmed, and high-pressure cor- 
sets, she had obtained such curious feminine develop- 
ments that she ought, for the instruction of mothers, 
to have exhibited them in a museum. 

Charles became very intimate with Madame d’Au- 
brion precisely because she was desirous of becoming 
intimate with him. Persons who were on board the 
brig declared that the handsome Madame d’Aubrion 
neglected no means of capturing so rich a son-in-law. 
On landing at Bordeaux in June, 1827, Monsieur, 
Madame, Mademoiselle d’Aubrion, and Charles lodged 
at the same hotel and started together for Paris. The 
hotel d’Aubrion was hampered with mortgages ; 
Charles was destined to free it. The mother told him 
how delighted she would be to give up the ground- 
floor to a son-in-law. Not sharing Monsieur d’Au- 
brion’s prejudices on the score of nobility, she promised 
Charles Grandet to obtain a royal ordinance from 
Charles X. which would authorize him, Grandet, to 


270 


EugSnie GrandeL 

take the name and arms of d’Aubrion and to succeed, 
by purchasing the entailed estate for thirty-six thousand 
francs a year, to the titles of Captal de Buch and Mar- 
quis d’Aubrion. thus uniting their fortunes, liv- 
ing on good terms, and profiting by sinecures, the two 
families might occupy the hotel d’Aubrion with an 
income of over a hundred thousand francs. 

“ And when a man has a hundred thousand francs a 
year, a name, a family, and a position at court, — for I 
will get you appointed as gentleman-of-the-bedchamber, 
— he can do what he likes,” she said to Charles. “ You 
can then become anything you choose, — master of the 
rolls in the council of State, prefect, secretary to an 
embassy, the ambassador himself, if you like. Charles 
X. is fond of d’Aubrion ; they have known each other 
from childhood.” 

Intoxicated with ambition, Charles toyed with the 
hopes thus cleverly presented to him in the guise of 
confidences poured from heart to heart. Believing his 
father’s affairs to have been settled by his uncle, he 
imagined himself suddenly anchored in the Faubourg 
Saint-Germain, — that social object of all desire, where, 
under shelter of Mademoiselle Mathilde’s purple nose, 
he was to reappear as the Comte d’Aubrion, very much 
as the Dreux reappeared in Br4z^. Dazzled b}^ the 
prosperity of the Restoration, which was tottering when 
he left France, fascinated by the splendor of aristo- 


EugSnie Grandet. 


2T1 


cratic ideas, his intoxication, which began on the brig, 
increased after he reached Paris, and he fina% deter- 
mined to take the course and reach the high position 
which the selfish hopes of his would-be mother-in-law 
pointed out to him. His cousin counted for no more 
than a speck in this brilliant perspective ; but he went 
to see Annette. True woman of the world, Annette ad- 
vised her old friend to make the marriage, and promised 
him her support in all his ambitious projects. In her 
heart she was enchanted to fasten an ugly and unin- 
teresting girl on Charles, whose life in the West Indies 
had rendered him very attractive. His complexion had 
bronzed, his manners had grown decided and bold, like 
those of a man accustomed to make sharp decisions, 
to rule, and to succeed. Charles breathed more at his 
ease in Paris, conscious that he now had a part to 
play. 

Des Grassins, hearing of his return, of his approach- 
ing marriage and his large fortune, came to see him, 
and inquired about the three hundred thousand francs 
still required to settle his father’s debts. He found 
Grandet in conference with a goldsmith, from whom 
he had ordered jewels for Mademoiselle d’Aubrion’s 
corheille^ and who was then submitting the designs. 
Charles had brought back magnificent diamonds, and 
the value of their setting, together with the plate and 
Jewelry of the new establishment, amounted to more 


272 EugSnie G-randet, 

than two hundred thousand francs. He received des 
Grassins, whom he did not recognize, with the imperti- 
nence of a young man of fashion conscious of having 
killed four men in as many duels in the Indies. Mon- 
sieur des Grassins had already called several times. 
Charles listened to him coldly, and then replied, without 
fully understanding what had been said to him, — 

“ My father’s affairs are not mine. I am much 
obliged, monsieur, for the trouble you have been 
good enough to take, — by which, however, I really 
cannot profit. I have not earned two millions by the 
sweat of my brow to fling them at the head of my 
father’s creditors.” 

“ But suppose that your father’s estate were within a 
few days to be declared bankrupt ? ” 

Monsieur, in a few days I shall be called the Comte 
• d’Aubrion ; you will understand, therefore, that what 
you threaten is of no consequence to me. Besides, 
you know as well as I do that when a man has an in- 
come of a hundred thousand francs his father has 
never failed'* So saying, he politely edged Monsieur 
des Grassins to the door. 

At the beginning of August in the same year, Eu- 
genie was sitting on the little wooden bench where her 
cousin had sworn to love her eternally, and where she 
usually breakfasted if the weather were fine. The poor 


2T6 


EugSnie Grandet. 

girl was happy, for the moment, in the fresh and joyous 
summer air, letting her memory recall the great and the 
little events of her love and the catastrophes which had 
followed it. The sun had just reached the angle of the 
ruined wall, so full of chinks, which no one, through a 
caprice of the mistress, was allowed to touch, though 
Cornoiller often remarked to his wife that “it would 
fall and crush somebody" one of these days.” At this 
moment the postman knocked, and gave a letter to Ma- 
dame Cornoiller, who ran into the garden, crying out : 

“ Mademoiselle, a letter ! ” She gave it to her mis- 
tress, adding, “ Is it the one you expected? ” 

The words rang as loudly in the heart of Eugenie as 
they echoed in sound from wall to wall of the court and 
garden. 

“ Paris — from him — he has returned ! ” 

Eugenie turned pale and held the letter for a mo- 
ment. She trembled so violently that she could not 
break the seal. La Grande Nanon stood before her, 
both hands on her hips, her joy puflSng as it were like 
smoke through the cracks of her brown face. 

“ Read it, mademoiselle ! ” 

“Ah, Nanon, why did he return to Paris? He went 
from Saumur.” 

“ Read it, and you ’ll find out.” 

Eugenie opened the letter with trembling fingers. A 
cheque on the house of “ Madame des Grassins and 
18 - 


274 EugSnie G-randet, 

Corret, of Saumur,” fluttered down. Nanon picked 
it up. 

My dear Cousin, — 

“No longer ‘Eugenie/” she thought, and her heart 
quailed. 

You — 

“He once said ‘thou.’” She folded her arms and 
dared not read another word ; great tears gathered in 
her eyes. 

“ Is he dead? ” asked Nanon. 

“If he were, he could not write,” said Eugenie. 

She then read the whole letter, which was as follows ; 

My Dear Cousin, — You will, I am sure, hear with 
pleasure of the success of my enterprise. You brought me 
luck; I have come back rich, and I have followed the advice 
of my uncle, whose death, together with that of my aunt, I 
have just learned from Monsieur des Grassins. The death 
of parents is in the course of nature, and we must succeed 
them. I trust you are by this time consoled. Nothing can 
resist time, as I am well aware. Yes, my dear cousin, the 
day of illusions is, unfortunately, gone for me. How could 
it be otherwise ? Travelling through many lands, I have re- 
flected upon life. I was a child when I went away, — I have 
come back a man. To-day, I think of many things I did 
not dream of then. You are free, my dear cousin, and I am 
free still. Nothing apparently hinders the realization of our 
early hopes ; but my nature is too loyal to hide from you the 
situation in which I find myself. I have not forgotten our 
relations; I have always remembered, throughout my long 
wanderings, the little wooden seat — 


Eugenie Grandet, 


275 


Eugenie rose as if she were sitting on live coals, and 
went away and sat down on the stone steps of the 
court. 

— the little wooden seat where we vowed to love each other 
forever, the passage, the gray hall, my attic chamber, and 
the night when, by yonr delicate kindness, you made my 
future easier to me. Yes, these recollections sustained my 
courage; I said in ray heart that you were thinking of me at 
the hour we had agreed upon. Have you always looked at 
the clouds at nine o’clock ? Yes, 1 am sure of it. I cannot 
betray so true a friendship, — no, I must not deceive you. 
An alliance has been proposed to me which satisfies all 
my ideas of matrimony. Love in marriage is a delusion. 
My present experience warns me that in marrying we are 
bound to obey all social laws and meet the conventional de- 
mands of the world. Now, between you and me there are 
differences which might affect your future, my dear cousin, 
even more than they would mine. I will not here speak of 
your customs and inclinations, your education, nor yet of 
your habits, none of which are in keeping with Parisian life, 
or with the future which I have marked out for myself. My 
intention is to keep my household on a stately footing, to 
receive much company, — in short, to live in the world; and I 
think I remember that you love a quiet and tranquil life. I 
will be frank, and make you the judge of my situation ; you 
have the right to understand it and to judge it. 

I possess at the present moment an income of eighty 
thousand francs. This fortune enables me to marry into the 
family of Aubrion, whose heiress, a young girl nineteen years 
of age, brings me a title, the place of gentleman-of-the-bed- 
chamber to His Majesty, and a very brilliant position. I 


276 


Euginie Grandet. 


will admit to you, my dear cousin, that I do not love Made- 
moiselle d’Aubrion; but in marrying her I secure to my 
children a social rank whose advantages will one day be in- 
calculable : monarchical principles are daily coming more and 
more into favor. Thus in course of time my son, when he 
becomes Marquis d’Aubrion, having, as he then will have, 
an entailed estate with a rental of forty thousand francs a 
year, can obtain any position in the State which he may 
think proper to select. We owe ourselves to our children. 

You see, my cousin, with what good faith I lay the state 
of my heart, my hopes, and my fortune before you. Possi- 
bly, after seven years’ separation, you have yourself forgotten 
our youthful loves; but I have never forgotten either your 
kindness or my own words. I remember all, even words 
that were lightly uttered, — words by which a man less con- 
scientious than I, with a heart less youthful and less upright, 
would scarcely feel himself bound. In telling you that the 
marriage I propose to make is solely one of convenience, that 
I still remember our childish love, am I not putting myself en- 
tirely in your hands and making you the mistress of my fate ? 
am I not telling you that if I must renounce my social ambi- 
tions, T shall willingly content myself with the pure and simple 
happiness of which you have shown me so sweet an image? 

“ Tan, ta, ta, — tan, ta, ti,” sang Charles Grandet to 
the air of N^on piu andrai^ as he signed himself, — 

Your devoted cousin, 

Charles. 

“Thunder! that’s doing it handsomely!” he said, 
as he looked about him for the cheque ; having found it, 
he added the words ; — 


EugSnie Grandet, 277 

P-S. — I enclose a cheque on the des Grassins bank foi 
eight thousand francs to your order, payable in gold, which 
includes the capital and interest of the sum you were kind 
enough to lend me. I am expecting a case from Bordeaux 
which contains a few things which you must allow me to 
offer you as a mark of my unceasing gratitude. You can 
send my dressing-case by the diligence to the hdtel d’Au- 
brion, rue Hillerin-Bertin. 

“ By the diligence ! ” said Eugenie. “ A thing for 
which I would have laid down my hfe ! ” 

Terrible and utter disaster ! The ship went down, 
leaving not a spar, not a plank, on the vast ocean of 
hope ! Some women when they see themselves aban- 
doned will try to tear their lover from the arms of a 
rival, they will kill her, and rush to the ends of the 
earth, — to the scaffold, to their tomb. That, no doubt, 
is fine ; the motive of the crime is a great passion, which 
awes even human justice. Other women bow their 
heads and suffer in silence ; they go their way dying, 
resigned, weeping, forgiving, praying, and recollecting, 
till they draw their latest breath. This is love, — true 
love, the love of angels, the proud love which lives 
upon its anguish and dies of it. Such was Eugenie’s 
love after she had read that dreadful letter. She raised 
her eyes to heaven, thinking of the last words uttered 
by her dying mother, who, with the prescience of death, 
had looked into the future with clear and penetrating 
eyes ; Eugenie, remembering that prophetic death, that 


278 


EugSnie G-randet, 


prophetic life, measured with one glance her own des- 
tiny. Nothing was left for her ; she could only unfold 
her wings, stretch upward to the skies, and live in 
prayer until the day of her deliverance. 

“ My mother was right,” she said, weeping. “ Suf- 
fer — and die ! ” 


JEugenie Grandet, 


279 


XIV. 

Eugenie came slowly back from the garden to the 
house, and avoided passing, as was her custom, through 
the corridor. But the memory of her cousin was in the 
gray old hall and on the chimney-piece, where stood 
a certain saucer and the old Sevres sugar-bowl which 
she used every morning at her breakfast. 

This day was destined to be solemn throughout and 
full of events. Nanon announced the cure of the parish 
church. He was related to the Cruchots, and therefore 
in the interests of Monsieur de Bonfons. For some 
time past the old abbe had urged him to speak to Made- 
moiselle Grandet,' from a purely religious point of view, 
about the duty of marriage for a woman in her position. 
When she saw her pastor, Eugenie supposed he had 
come for the thousand francs which she gave monthly 
to the poor, and she told Nanon to go and fetch them ; 
but the cure only smiled. 

“ To-day, mademoiselle,” he said, “I have come to 
speak to you about a poor girl in whom the whole town 
of Saumur takes an interest, who, through lack of 
charity to herself, neglects her Christian duties.” 


280 


Euginie Grandet, 


“Monsieur le cure, 3’ou have come to me at a mo- 
ment when I cannot think of my neighbor, I am filled 
with thoughts of mj^self. I am very unhappy ; my only 
refuge is in the Church : her bosom is large enough to 
hold all human woe, her love so full that we may 
draw from its depths and never drain it dry.” 

“ Mademoiselle, in speaking of this j’oung girl we 
shall speak of you. Listen ! If you wish to insure 3’our 
salvation 3"Ou have only two paths to take, — either 
leave the world or obey its laws. Obey either your 
earthlj^ destiny or j^our heavenlj' destin}".” 

“ Ah ! 3"our voice speaks to me when I need to hear 
a voice. Yes, God has sent 3"ou to me ; I will bid fare- 
well to the world and live for God alone, in silence and 
seclusion.” 

“ M3" daughter, 3"ou must think long before 3’ou take 
so violent a step. Marriage is life, the veil is death.” 

“ Yes, death, — a quick death ! ” she said, with dread- 
ful eagerness. 

‘ ‘ Death ? but you have great obligations to fulfil to 
societ3' , mademoiselle. Are 3"ou not the mother of the 
poor, to whom you give clothes and wood in win- 
ter and work in summer? Your great fortune is a 
loan which 3"ou must return, and 3"ou have sacredty 
accepted it as such. To bury 3"ourself in a convent 
would be selfishness ; to remain an old maid is to fail 
in duty. In the first place, can you manage your vast 


Euglnie Grandet 


281 


property alone? May you not lose it? You will have 
law-suits, you will find yourself surrounded by inex- 
tricable diflftculties. Believe your pastor : a husband is 
useful ; you are bound to preserve what God has be- 
stowed upon j^ou. I speak to you as a precious lamb 
of my flock. You love God too truly not to find your 
salvation in the midst of his world, of which you are a 
noble ornament and to which you owe your example.” 

At this moment Madame des Grassins was announced. 
She came incited by vengeance and the sense of a great 
despair. 

“Mademoiselle,” she said — “Ah! here is mon- 
sieur le cure ; I am silent. I came to speak to you on 
business ; but I see that you are conferring with — ” 

“ Madame,” said the cure, “ I leave the field to you.” 

“ Oh ! monsieur le cure,” said Eugenie, “ come back 
later ; your support is very necessary to me just now.” 

“ Ah, yes, indeed, my poor child 1 ” said Madame des 
Grassins. 

“ What do you mean? ” asked Eugenie and the cure 
together. 

“ Don’t I know about your cousin’s return, and his 
marriage with Mademoiselle d’Aubrion? A woman 
does n’t carry her wits in her pocket.” 

Eugenie blushed, and remained silent for a moment. 
From this day forth she assumed the impassible coum 
tenance for which her father had been so remarkable. 


282 


EugSnie Grandet, 


“Well, madame,”she presently said, ironically, “no 
doubt I carry my wits in m3' pocket, for I do not under- 
stand 3'ou. Speak, say what you mean, before monsieur 
le cure ; you know he is my director.” 

“ Well, then, mademoiselle, here is what des Grassins 
writes me. Read it.” 

Eugenie read the following letter : — 

My dear Wife, — Charles Grandet has returned from the 
Indies and has been in Paris about a month — 

“ A month ! ” thought Eugenie, her hand falling to 
her side. After a pause she resumed the letter, — 

I had to dance attendance before I was allowed to see the 
future Vicomte d’Aubrion Though all Paris is talking of 
his marriage and the banns are published — 

“ He wrote to me after that ! ” thought Eugenie. She 
did not conclude the thought ; she did not cry out, as 
a Parisian woman would have done, “ The villain!” 
but though she said it not, contempt was none the less 
present in her mind. 

The marriage, however, will not come off The Marquis 
d’ Aubrion will never give his daughter to the son of a bank- 
rupt. I went to tell Grandet of the steps his uncle and I 
took in his father’s business, and the clever manoeuvres by 
which we had managed to keep the creditors quiet until the 
present time. The insolent fellow had the face to say to 
me — to me, who for five years have devoted myself night 


283 


EugSnie GrandeU 

and day to his interests and his honor! — that his father’s af 
fairs were not his ! A solicitor would have had the right to 
demand fees amounting to thirty or forty thousand francs, 
one per cent on the total of the debts. But patience! there 
are twelve hundred thousand francs legitimately owing to the 
creditors, and I shall at once declare his father a bankrupt. 

I went into this business on the word of that old croco- 
dile Grandet, and I have made promises in the name of the 
family. If Monsieur le vicomte d’Aubrion does not care for 
his honor, I care for mine. I shall explain my position to 
the creditors. Still, I have too much respect for Mademoi- 
selle Eugenie (to whom under happier circumstances we once 
hoped to be allied) to act in this matter before you have 
spoken to her about it — 

There Eugenie paused, and coldly returned the letter 
•without finishing it. 

“ I thank 3^ou,” she said to Madame des Grassins. 

“Ah! you have the voice and manner of your de- 
ceased father,” Madame des Grassins replied. 

“ Madame, you have eight thousand francs to pay 
us,” said Nanon, producing Charles’s cheque. 

“That’s true; have the kindness to come with me 
now, Madame Cornoiller.” 

“Monsieur le cure,” said Eugenie with a noble 
composure, inspired by the thought she was about to 
express, “would it be a sin to remain a virgin after 
marriage ? ” 

“That is a case of conscience whose solution is not 
within my knowledge. If you wish to know what the 


284 


EugSnie Grandet. 


celebrated Sanchez sa3^s of it in his treatise ‘ De Mat- 
rimonio/ I shall be able to tell 3’ou to-morrow.” 

The cure went away ; Mademoiselle Grandet went 
up to her father’s secret room and spent the day there 
alone, without coming down to dinner, in spite of Na- 
non’s entreaties. She appeared in the evening at the 
hour when the usual compan}^ began to arrive. Never 
was the old hall so full as on this occasion. The news 
of Charles’s return and his foolish treachery had spread 
through the whole town. But however watchful the 
curiosity of the visitors might be, it was left unsatisfied. 
Eugenie, who expected scrutiny, allowed none of the 
cruel emotions that wrung her soul to appear on the 
calm surface of her face. She was able to show a smil- 
ing front in answer to all who tried to testify their in- 
terest by mournful looks or melancholy speeches. She 
hid her misery behind a veil of courtesy. Towards nine 
o’clock the games ended and the pla^’ers left the tables, 
pacing their losses and discussing points of the game 
as they joined the rest of the company. At the mo- 
ment when the whole party rose to take leave, an un- 
expected and striking event occurred, which resounded 
through the length and breadth of Saumur, from thence 
through the arrondissement, and even to the four sur- 
rounding prefectures. 

“ Stay, monsieur le president,” said Eugenie to Mon- 
sieur de Bonfons as she saw him take his cane. 


EugSnie Grandet, 


285 


There was not a person in that numerous assembly 
who was unmoved by these words. The president 
turned pale, and was forced to sit down. 

“ The president gets the millions,” said Mademoiselle 
de Gribeaucourt. 

“It is plain enough ; the president marries Made- 
moiselle Grandet,” cried Madame d’Orsonval. 

“ All the trumps in one hand,” said the abbe. 

“ A love game,” said the notary. 

Each and all said his say, made his pun, and looked 
at the heiress mounted on her millions as on a pedestal. 
The drama begun nine years before had reached its 
conclusion. To tell the president, in face of all Sau- 
mur, to “ stay,” was surely the same thing as proclaim- 
ing him her husband. In provincial towns social 
conventionalities are so rigidly enforced that an infrac- 
tion like this constituted a solemn promise. 

“ Monsieur le president,” said Eugenie in a voice of 
some emotion when they were left alone, “ I know what 
pleases you in me. Swear to leave me free during my 
whole life, to claim none of the rights which marriage 
will give you over me, and my hand is yours. Oh ! ” 
she added, seeing him about to kneel at her feet, “I 
have more to say. I must not deceive you. In m}^ 
heart I cherish one inextinguishable feeling. Friend- 
ship ifi the only sentiment which I can give to a hus- 
band. I wish neither to affront him nor to violate the 


286 


Eugenie Grandet, 


laws of my own heart. But you can possess my hand 
and my fortune only at the cost of doing me an inesti- 
mable service.” 

“lam ready for all things,” said the president. 

“ Here are fifteen hundred thousand francs,” she 
said, drawing from her bosom a certificate of a hundred 
shares in the Bank of France. “ Go to Paris, — not 
to-morrow, but instantly. Find Monsieur des Gras- 
sins, learn the names of my uncle’s creditors, call 
them together, pay them in full all that was owing, 
with interest at five per cent from the day the debt 
was incurred to the present time. Be careful to ob- 
tain a full and legal receipt, in proper form, before a 
notary. You are a magistrate, and I can trust this 
matter in ^^our hands. You are a man of honor ; I will 
put faith in your word, and meet the dangers of life 
under shelter of your name. Let us have mutual in- 
dulgence. We have known each other so long that 
we are almost related ; you would not wish to render 
me unhappy.” 

The president fell at the feet of the rich heiress, his 
heart beating and wrung with joy. 

“ I will be your slave ! ” he said. 

“ When you obtain the receipts, monsieur,” she re- 
sumed, with a cold glance, “ you will take them with all 
the other papers to my cousin Grandet, and you will give 
him this letter. On your return I will keep my word.” 


EugSnie G-randet. 


287 


The president understood perfectly that he owed the 
acquiescence of Mademoiselle Grandet to some bitter- 
ness of love, and he made haste to obey her orders, lest 
time should effect a reconciliation between the pair. 

When Monsieur de Bonfons left her, Eugenie fell back 
in her chair and burst into tears. All was over. 

The president took the mail-post, and reached Paris 
the next evening. The morning after his arrival he 
went to see des Grassins, and together they summoned 
the creditors to meet at the notary’s oflSce where the 
vouchers had been deposited. Not a single creditor 
failed to be present. Creditors though they were, jus- 
tice must be done to them, — they were all punctual. 
Monsieur de Bonfons, in the name of Mademoiselle 
Grandet, paid them the amount of their claims with 
interest. The payment of interest was a remarkable 
event in the Parisian commerce of that day. When 
the receipts were aU legally registered, and des Gras- 
sins had received for his services the sum of fifty thou- 
sand francs allowed to him by Eugenie, the president 
made his way to the hotel d’Aubrion and found Charles 
just entering his own apartment after a serious en- 
counter with his prospective father-in-law. The old 
marquis had told him olainly that he should not marry 
his daughter until all the creditors of Guillaume Gran 
det had been paid in full. 

The president gave Charles the following letter : — 


288 


Eugenie Grandet. 


My Cousin, — Monsieur le president de Bonfons has un 
dertaken to place in your hands the acquittance for all claims 
upon my uncle, also a receipt by which I acknowledge hav- 
ing received from you the sum total of those claims. I have 
heard of a possible failure, and I think that the son of a 
bankrupt may not be able to marry Mademoiselle d’Aubrion. 
Yes, my cousin, you judged rightly of my mind and of my 
manners. I have, it is true, no part in the world; I under- 
stand neither its calculations nor its customs ; and I could not 
give you the pleasures that you seek in it. Be happy, ac- 
cording to the social conventions to which you have sacrificed 
our love. To make your happiness complete I can only offer 
you your father’s honor. Adieu ! You will always have a 
faithful friend in your cousin 

EUG]^NIE. 

The president smiled at the exclamation which the 
ambitious j^oung man could not repress as he received 
the documents. 

“ We will announce our marriages at the same time,” 
remarked Monsieur de Bonfons. 

“Ah! you marry Eugenie ? Well, I am delighted; 
she is a good girl. But,” added Charles, struck with 
a luminous idea, “she must be rich?” 

“She had,” said the president, with a mischievous 
smile, “ about nineteen millions four days ago ; but she 
has only seventeen millions to-day.” 

Charles looked at him thunderstruck. 

“ Seventeen mil — ” 

“Seventeen millions ; yes, monsieur. We shall mus- 


JEugSnie Grandet. 


289 


ter, Mademoiselle Grandet and I, an income of seven 
hundred and fifty thousand francs when we marry.” 

“ My dear cousin,” said Charles, recovering a little of 
his assurance, “ we can push each other’s fortunes.” 

“ Agreed,” said the president. “ Here is also a 
little case which I am charged to give into your own 
hands,” he added, placing on the table the leather box 
which contained the dressing-case. 

“Well, my dear friend,” said Madame d’Aubrion, 
entering the room without noticing the president, 
“don’t pay any attention to what poor Monsieur 
d’Aubrion has just said to you ; the Duchesse de Chau- 
lieu has turned his head. I repeat, nothing shall inter- 
fere with the marriage — ” 

“ Very good, madame. The three millions which 
my father owed were paid yesterday.” 

“ In money?” she asked. 

“Yes, in full, capital and interest; and I am about 
to do honor to his memory — ” 

“ What folly ! ” exclaimed his mother-in-law. “ Who 
is this?” she whispered in Grandet’s ear, perceiving 
the president. 

“ My man of business,” he answered in a low voice. 

The marquise bowed superciliously to Monsieur de 
Bonfons. 

“ We are pushing each other’s fortunes already,” said 
the president, taking up his hat. “ Good-by, cousin.” 

19 


290 


EugSnie Girandet. 


“He is laughing at me, the old cockatoo! I’d 
like to put six inches of iron into him ! ” muttered 
Charles. 

The president was out of hearing. Three days later 
Monsieur de Bonfous, on his return to Saumur, an- 
nounced his marriage with Eugenie. Six months after 
the marriage he was appointed councillor in the Cour 
roj ale at Angers. Before leaving Saumur Madame de 
Bonfons had the gold of certain jewels, once precious to 
her heart, melted up, and put, together with the eight 
thousand francs paid back by her cousin, into a golden 
pyx, which she gave to the parish church where she 
had so long prayed for him. She now spent her time 
between Angers and Saumur. Her husband, who had 
shown some public spirit on a certain occasion, became 
a judge in the superior courts, and finally, after a few 
years, president of them. He was anxiousl}" awaiting 
a general election, in the hope of being returned to the 
Chamber of deputies. He hankered after a peerage ; 
and then — 

“The king will be his cousin, won’t he?” said Na- 
non, la Grande Nanon, Madame Cornoiller, bourgeoise 
of Saumur, as she listened to her mistress, who was 
recounting the honors to which she was called. 

Nevertheless, Monsieur de Bonfons (he had finally 
abolished his patronymic of Cruchot) did not realize 
any of his ambitious ideas. He died eight days after 


Eugenie Grandet, 


291 


his election as deputy of Saumur. God, who sees aU 
and never strikes amiss, punished him, no doubt, for 
his sordid calculations and the legal cleverness with 
which, accurante Cruchot^ he had drawn up his mar- 
riage contract, in which husband and wife gave to each 
other, case they should have no children^ their 

entire property of every hind^ landed or otherwise^ 
without exception or reservation^ dispensing even with 
the formality of an inventory; provided that said 
omission of said inventory shall not injure their 
heirs and assigns^ it being understood that this deed 
of gift is, etc., etc'" This clause of the contract will 
explain the profound respect which monsieur le presi- 
dent always testified for the wishes, and above all, for 
the solitude of Madame de Bonfons. Women cited 
him as the most considerate and delicate of men, 
pitied him, and even went so far as to find fault with 
the passion and grief of Eugenie, blaming her, as 
women know so well how to blame, with cruel but 
discreet insinuation. 

“Madame de Bonfons must be very ill to leave 
her husband entirely alone. Poor woman! Is she 
likely to get well? What is it? Something gastric ? 
A cancer? ” — “ She has grown perfectly yellow. She 
ought to consult some celebrated doctor in Paris.” — 
“ How can she be happy without a child? They say 
she loves her husband ; then why not give him an 


292 


EugSnie Grandet. 


heir? — in his position, too ! ” — “ Do you know, it is 
really dreadful ! If it is the result of mere caprice, it is 
unpardonable. Poor president ! ” 

Endowed with the delicate perception which a soli- 
tary soul acquires through constant meditation, through 
the exquisite clear-sightedness with which a mind aloof 
from life fastens on all that falls within its sphere, 
Eugenie, taught by suffering and by her later education 
to divine thought, knew well that the president desired 
her death that he might step into possession of their 
immense fortune, augmented by the property of his 
uncle the notarj^ and his uncle the abbe, whom it had 
lately pleased God to call to himself. The poor soli- 
tary pitied the president. Providence avenged her for 
the calculations and the indifference of a husband who 
respected the hopeless passion on which she spent her 
life because it was his surest safeguard. To give life 
to a child would give death to his hopes, — the hopes of 
selfishness, the joys of ambition, which the president 
cherished as he looked into the future. 

God thus fiung piles of gold upon this prisoner to 
whom gold was a matter of indifference, who longed 
for heaven, who lived, pious and good, in holy 
thoughts, succoring the unfortunate in secret, and 
never wearying of such deeds. Madame de Bonfons 
became a widow at thirty-six. She is still beautiful, but 
with the beauty of a woman who is nearly forty years 


Eugenie GrandeU 


293 


of age. Her face is white and placid and calm ; her 
voice gentle and self-possessed ; her manners are simple. 
She has the noblest qualities of sorrow, the saintliness 
of one who has never soiled her soul by contact with 
the world ; but she has also the rigid bearing of an old 
maid and the petty habits inseparable from the narrow 
round of provincial life. In spite of her vast wealth, 
she lives as the poor Eugenie Grandet once lived. The 
fire is never lighted on her hearth until the da}^ when 
her father allowed it to be lighted in the hall, and it is 
put out in conformity with the rules which governed 
her youthful years. She dresses as her mother dressed. 
The house in Saumur, without sun, without warmth, 
always in shadow, melancholy, is an image of her life. 
vShe carefully accumulates her income, and might seem 
parsimonious did she not disarm criticism by a noble 
employment of her wealth. Pious and charitable insti- 
tutions, a hospital for old age, Christian schools for 
children, a public libraiy richly endowed, bear testi- 
mony against the charge of avarice which some persons 
lay at her door. The churches of Saumur owe much 
of their embellishment to her. Madame de Bonfons 
(sometimes ironically spoken of as mademoiselle) in- 
spires for the most part reverential respect : and yet 
that noble heart, beating only with tenderest emotions, 
has been, from first to last, subjected to the calculations 
of human selfishness ; money has cast its frigid influ- 


294 


Eugenie Grandet, 

pnce upon that hallowed life and taught distrust of 
feelings to a woman who is all feeling. 

“I have none but you to love me/’ she says to 
Nanon. 

The hand of this woman stanches the secret wounds 
in many families. She goes on her way to heaven at- 
tended by a train of benefactions. The grandeur of 
her soul redeems the naiTowness of her education and 
the pett}' habits of her early life. 

Such is the histor}’ of Eugenie Grandet, who is in 
the world but not of it ; who, created to be supremely 
a wife and mother, has neither husband nor children 
nor family. Lately there has been some question of 
her marrying again. The Saumur people talk of her 
and of the Marquis de Froidfond, whose family are 
beginning to beset the rich widow just as, in former 
days, the Cruchots laid siege to the rich heiress. 
Nanon and Cornoiller are, it is said, in the interests of 
the marquis. Nothing could be more false. Neither 
la Grande Nanon nor Cornoiller has suflScient mind 
to understand the corruptions of the world. 



I 

1 

r 

) 

\ 

\ 

: 

I 










CONTENTS. 


CRaPTES PAtS 

1. The Lorrains 2 

II. The Rogrous 20 

III. Pathology of Retired Mercers .... 38 

IV. Pierrette 73 

V. History of Poor Cousins in the Homes 

OF Rich Ones 95 

VI. An Old Maid’s Jealousy 117 

VII. Domestic Tyranny 143 

VIII. The Lovers of Jacques and Pierrette . 162 

IX. The Family Council 192 

X. Verdicts — Legal and Other ..... 208 














PIERRETTE, 


To Mademoiselle Anna Hanska: 


Dear Child, — You, the joy of the household, you, 
whose pink or white pelerine flutters in summer among 
the groves of Wierzschovnia like a will-o’-the-wisp, 
followed by the tender eyes of your father and your 
mother, — how can I dedicate to you a story full of 
melancholy ? And yet, ought not sorrows to be spoken 
of to a 3"Oung girl idolized as you are, since the day 
may come when your sweet hands will be called to 
minister to them? It is so diflScult, Anna, to find 
in the history of our manners and morals a subject 
that is worthy of 3^our eyes, that no choice has been 
left me ; but perhaps you will be made to feel how 
fortunate your fate is when you read the story sent 
to 3'ou by 


Your old friend. 


De Balzac. 


2 


Pierrette. 


THE LORRAINS. 

At the dawn of an October day in 1827 a young 
fellow about sixteen years of age, whose clothing pro- 
claimed what modern phraseology so insolently calls 
a proletary, was standing in a small square of Lower 
Provins. At that early hour he could examine without 
being observed the various houses surrounding the 
open space, which was oblong in form. The mills 
along the river were already working ; the whirr of 
their wheels, repeated by the echoes of the Upper 
Town in the keen air and sparkling clearness of the 
early morning, onl}" intensified the general silence so 
that the wheels of a diligence could be heard a league 
away along the highroad. The two longest sides of 
the square, separated by an avenue of lindens, were 
built in the simple style which expresses so well the 
peaceful and matter-of-fact life of the bourgeoisie. 
No signs of commerce were to be seen ; on the other 
hand, the luxurious porte-cocheres of the rich were 
few, and those few turned seldom on their hinges, ex- 
cepting that of Monsieur Martener, a ph^’sician, whose 


Pierrette. 


8 


profession obliged him to keep a cabriolet, and to 
use it. A few of the house-fronts were covered by 
grape vines, others by roses climbing to the second- 
stor}" windows, through which they wafted the fra- 
grance of their scattered bunches. One end of the 
square enters the main street of the Lower Town, 
the gardens of which reach to the bank of one of the 
two rivers which water the valley of Provins. The 
other end of the square enters a street which runs 
parallel to the main street. 

At the latter, which was also the quietest end of 
the square, the young workman recognized the house 
of which he was in search, which showed a front of 
white stone grooved in lines to represent courses, win- 
dows with closed gray blinds, and slender iron bal- 
conies decorated with rosettes painted yellow. Above 
the ground floor and the first floor were three dormer 
windows projecting from a slate roof ; on the peak 
of the central one was a new weather-vane. This 
modern innovation represented a hunter in the attitude 
of shooting a hare. The front door was reached by 
three stone steps. On one side of this door a leaden 
pipe discharged the sink-water into a small street- 
gutter, showing the whereabouts of the kitchen. On 
the other side were two windows, carefull}^ closed 
by gray shutters in which were heart-shaped openings 
cut to admit the light ; these windows seemed to be 


4 


Pierrette, 


those of the dining-room. In the elevation gained 
by the three steps were vent-holes to the cellar, closed 
painted iron shutters fantastically cut in open-work. 
Everything was new. In this repaired and restored 
house, the fresh- colored look of which contrasted with 
the time-worn exteriors of all the other houses, an 
observer would instantly perceive the paltry taste and 
perfect self-satisfaction of the retired petty shop- 
keeper. 

The young man looked at these details with an 
expression of pleasure that seemed to have something 
rather sad in it ; his ej’es roved from the kitchen 
to the roof, with a motion that showed a deliberate 
purpose. The rosy glow of the rising sun fell on a 
calico curtain at one of the garret windows, the others 
being without tliat luxur}’. As he caught sight of it 
the young fellow’s face brightened gayly. He stepped 
baek a little way, leaned against a linden, and sang, 
in the drawling tone peculiar to the west of France, 
the following Breton ditty, published by Bruguiere, a 
composer to whom we are indebted for many charm- 
ing melodies. In Brittan}^, the young villagers sing 
this song to all newly-married couples on their wedding- 
day:— 

« »yg eome to wish you happiness in marriage, 

To m’sieur your husband 
As well as to you : 


Pierrette. 


5 


** You have just been bound, madam* la mari^, 

With bonds of gold 
That only death unbinds : 

“ You will go no more to balls or gay assemblies; 

You must stay at home 
While we shall go. 

•* Have you thought well how you are pledged to be 
True to your spouse, 

And love him like yourself? 

** Receive these flowers our hands do now present you ; 
Alas ! your fleeting honors 
Will fade as they.” 

This native air (as sweet as that adapted by Chateau- 
briand to Ma soeur^ te soumenUil encore), sung in this 
little town of the Brie district, must have been to 
the ears of a Breton maiden the touchstone of imperious 
memories, so faithfully does it picture the manners 
and customs, the surroundings and the heartiness of 
her noble old land, where a sort of melancholy reigns, 
hardly to be defined ; caused, perhaps, by the aspect 
of life in Brittany, which is deeply touching. This 
power of awakening a world of grave and sweet and 
tender memories by a familiar and sometimes lively 
ditty, is the privilege of those popular songs which are 
the superstitions of music, — if we may use the word 
^^superstition” as signifying all that remains after the 
ruin of a people, all that survives their revolutions. 


6 


Pierrette. 


As he finished the first couplet, the singer, who 
never took his eyes from the attic curtain, saw no 
signs of life. While he sang the second, the curtain 
stirred. When the words “Receive these flowers” 
were sung, a youthful face appeared ; a white hand 
cautiously opened the casement, and a girl made a 
sign with her head to the singer as he ended with the 
melancholy thought of the simple verses, — ‘ ‘ Alas I 
your fleeting honors will fade as they.” 

To her the young workman suddenly showed, draw- 
ing it from within his jacket, a yellow flower, very 
common in Brittanj^ and sometimes to be found in 
La Brie (where, however, it is rare), — the furze, or 
broom. 

“Is it really you, Brigaut?” said the girl, in a 
low voice. 

“ Yes, Pierrette, yes. I am in Paris. I have 
started to make my way ; but I ’m ready to settle 
here, near you.” 

Just then the fastening of a window creaked in a 
room on the first floor, directl}" below Pierrette’s attic. 
The girl showed the utmost terror, and said to Brigaut, 
quickly : — 

“ Run away ! ” 

The lad jumped like a frightened frog to a bend 
in the street caused by the projection of a mill just 
where the square opens into the main thoroughfare ; 


Pierrette, 


7 


but in spite of his haste his hob-nailed shoes echoed 
on the stones with a sound easily distinguished from 
the music of the mill, and no doubt heard by the 
person who opened the window. 

That person was a woman. No man would have 
torn himself from the comfort of a morning nap to 
listen to a minstrel in a jacket; none but a maid 
awakes to songs of love. Not only was this woman a 
maid, but she was an old maid. When she had opened 
her blinds with the furtive motion of a bat, she looked 
in all directions, but saw nothing, and only heard, 
faintly, the flying footfalls of the lad. Can there be 
an3’thing more dreadful than the matutinal apparition 
of an uglj" old maid at her window? Of all the 
grotesque sights which amuse the eyes of travellers 
in countr}^ towns, that is the most unpleasant. It 
is too repulsive to laugh at. This particular old maid, 
whose ear was so keen, was denuded of all the ad- 
ventitious aids, of whatever kind, which she emplo3’ed 
as embellishments ; her false front and her collarette 
were lacking ; she wore that horrible little bag of 
black silk with which old women insist on covering 
their skulls, and it was now revealed beneath the 
night-cap which had been pushed aside in sleep. This 
rumpled condition gave a menacing expression to the 
head, such as painters bestow on witches. The tem- 
ples, ears, and nape of the neck, were disclosed in all 


8 


Pierrette, 


their withered horror, — the wrinkles being marked in 
scarlet lines that contrasted with the would-be white 
of the bed-gown which was tied round her neck by 
a narrow tape. The gaping of this garment revealed 
a breast to be likened only to that of an old peasant 
woman who cares nothing about her personal ugliness. 
The fleshless arm was like a stick on which a bit 
of stuff was hung. Seen at her window, this spinster 
seemed tall from the length and angularity of her 
face, which recalled the exaggerated proportions of 
certain Swiss heads. The character of her counte- 
nance — the features being marked by a total want 
of harmony — was that of hardness in the lines, sharp- 
ness in the tones ; while an unfeeling spirit, pervad- 
ing all, would have filled a physiognomist with dis- 
gust. These characteristics, fully visible at this mo- 
ment, were usually modified in public by a sort of 
commercial smile, — a bourgeois smirk which mimicked 
good-humor ; so that persons meeting with this old 
maid might very well take her for a kindl}^ woman. 
She owned the house on shares with her brother. The 
brother, by-the-bye, was sleeping so tranquilly in his 
own chamber that the orchestra of the Opera-house 
could not have wakened him, wonderful as its diapason 
is said to be. 

The old maid stretched her neck out of the window, 
twisted it, and raised her cold, pale-blue little eyes, 


Pierrette, 


with their short lashes set in lids that were always 
rather swollen, to the attic window, endeavoring to 
see Pierrette. Perceiving the uselessness of that at- 
tempt, she retreated into her room with a movement 
like that of a tortoise which draws in its head after 
protruding it from its carapace. The blinds were then 
closed, and the silence of the street was unbroken 
except by peasants coming in from the country, or 
very early persons moving about. 

When there is an old maid in a house, watch-dogs 
are unnecessary ; not the slightest event can occur 
that she does not see and comment upon and pursue 
to its utmost consequences. The foregoing trifling 
circumstance was therefore destined to give rise to 
grave suppositions, and to open the way for one of 
those obscure dramas which take place in families, 
and are none the less terrible because they are se- 
cret, — if, indeed, we may apply the word “drama” 
to such domestic occurrences. 

Pierrette did not go back to bed. To her, BrigauPs 
arrival was an immense event. During the night — 
that Eden of the wretched — she escaped the vexa- 
tions and fault-findings she bore during the day. Like 
the hero of a ballad, German or Russian, I forget 
which, her sleep seemed to her the happy life ; her 
waking hours a bad dream. She had just had her 
only pleasurable waking in three years. The memo 


10 


Pierrette. 


lies of her childhood had sung their melodious ditties 
in her soul. The first couplet was heard in a dream ; 
the second made her spring out of bed ; at the third, 
she doubted her ears, — the sorrowful are all disciples 
of Saint Thomas ; but when the fourth was sung, 
standing in her night-gown with bare feet by the 
window, she recognized Brigaut, the companion of 
her childhood. Ah, yes ! it was truly the well-known 
square jacket with the bobtails, the pockets of which 
stuck out at the hips, — the jacket of blue cloth which 
is classic in Brittan^^ ; there, too, were the waistcoat 
of printed cotton, the linen shirt fastened by a gold 
heart, the large rolling collar, the earrings, the stout 
shoes, the trousers of blue-gra}^ drilling unevenly col- 
ored by the various lengths of the warp, — in short, 
all those humble, strong, and durable things which 
make the apparel of the Breton peasantr3\ The big 
buttons of white horn which fastened the jacket made 
the girl’s heart beat. When she saw the bunch of 
broom her eyes filled with tears ; then a dreadful fear 
drove back into her heart the happy memories that 
were budding there. She thought her cousin sleeping 
in the room beneath her might have heard the noise she 
made in jumping out of bed and running to the window. 
The fear was just ; the old maid was coming, and she 
made Brigaut the terrified sign which the lad obeyed 
without the least understanding it. Such instinctive 


Pierrette. 


11 


submission to a girl’s bidding shows one of those 
innocent and absolute affections which appear from 
century' to century on this earth, where they blossom, 
like the aloes of Isola E^lla, twice or thrice in a 
hundred years. Whoever had seen the lad as he ran 
away would have loved the ingenuous chivalry of his 
most ingenuous feeling. 

Jacques Brigaut was worthy of Pierrette Lorrain, 
who was just fifteen. Two children ! Pierrette could 
not keep from crying as she watched his fiight in 
the terror her gesture had conveyed to him. Then 
she sat down in a shabby armchair placed before a 
little table above which hung a mirror. She rested 
her elbows on the table, put her head in her hands, 
and sat thinking for an hour, calling to memory the 
Marais, the village of Pen-Hoel, the perilous voyages 
on a pond in a boat untied for her from an old willow 
by little Jacques ; then the old faces of her grand- 
father and grandmother, the sufferings of her mother, 
and the handsome face of Major Brigaut, — in short, 
the whole of her careless childhood. It was all a 
dream, a luminous joy on the gloomy background of 
the present. 

Her beautiful chestnut hair escaped in disorder from 
her cap, rumpled in sleep, — a cambric cap with ruffles, 
which she had made herself. On each side of her 
forehead were little ringlets escaping from gray curl- 


12 


Pierrette. 


papers. From the back of her head hung a heavy 
braid of hair that was half unplaited. The excessive 
whiteness of her face betra^^ed that terrible malady 
of girlhood which goes by the name of chlorosis, de- 
prives the body of its natural colors, destroj^s the 
appetite, and shows a disordered state of the organism. 
The waxy tones were in all the visible parts of her 
flesh. The neck and shoulders explained by their 
blanched paleness the wasted arms, flung forward and 
crossed upon the table. Her feet seemed enervated, 
shrunken from illness. Her night-gown came only to 
her knees and showed the flaccid muscles, the blue 
veins, the impoverished flesh of the legs. The cold, 
to which she paid no heed, turned her lips violet, 
and a sad smile, drawing up the corners of a sensitive 
mouth, showed teeth that were white as ivory and 
quite small, — pretty, transparent teeth, in keeping 
with the delicate ears, the rather sharp but dainty 
nose, and the general outline of her face, which, in 
spite of its roundness, was lovely. All the animation 
of this charming face was in the eyes, the iris of 
which, brown like Spanish tobacco and flecked with 
black, shone with golden reflections round pupils that 
were brilliant and intense. Pierrette was made to be 
gay, but she was sad. Her lost gayety was still to be 
seen in the vivacious forms of the eye, in the ingenuous 
grace of her brow, in the smooth curve of her chin. 


Pierrette. 


13 


The long eyelashes lay upon the cheek-bones, made 
prominent by suffering. The paleness of her face, 
which was unnaturally white, made the lines and all 
the details infinitely pure. The ear alone was a little 
masterpiece of modelling, — in marble, you might say. 
Pierrette suffered in many ways. Perhaps you would 
like to know her history, and this is it. 

Pierrette’s mother was a Demoiselle Auffray of 
Provins, half-sister by the father’s side of Madame 
Kogron, mother of the present owners of the house. 

Monsieur Auffray, her husband, had married at the 
age of eighteen ; his second marriage took place when 
he was nearly sixty-nine. By the first, he had an 
only daughter, very plain, who was married at sixteen 
to an innkeeper of Provins named Rogron. 

By his second marriage the worthy Auffray had 
another daughter ; but this one was charming. There 
was, of course, an enormous difference in the ages 
of these daughters ; the one by the first marriage 
was fifty years old when the second child was born. 
By this time the eldest, Madame Rogron, had two 
grown-up children. 

The youngest daughter of the old man was married 
at eighteen to the man of her choice, a Breton oflScer 
named Lorrain, captain in the Imperial Guard. Love 
often makes a man ambitious. The captain, anxious 
to rise to a colonelcy, exchanged into a line regiment, 


14 


Pierrette. 


While he, then a major, and his wife enjoyed them- 
selves in Paris on the allowance made to them by 
Monsieur and Madame Auffray, or scoured Germany at 
the beck and call of the Emperor’s battles and truces, 
old Auffray himself (formerly a grocer) died, at the 
age of eighty-eight, without having found time to make 
a will. His property was administered by his daughter, 
Madame Rogron, and her husband so completely in 
their own interests that nothing remained for the 
old man’s widow beyond the house she lived in on 
the little square, and a few acres of land. This widow, 
the mother of Madame Lorrain, was onl}" thirt 3 '-eight 
at the time of her husband’s death. Like manj' widows, 
she came to the unwise decision of remarrying. She 
sold the house and land to her step-daughter, Madame 
Rogron, and married a young physician named N4raud, 
who wasted her whole fortune. She died of grief and 
misery two years later. 

Thus the share of her father’s property which ought 
to have come to Madame Lorrain disappeared al- 
most entirely, being reduced to the small sum of eight 
thousand francs. Major Lorrain was killed at the 
battle of Montereau, leaving his wife, then twenty- 
one years of age, with a little daughter of fourteen 
months, and no other means than the pension to which 
she was entitled and an eventual inheritance from her 
late husband’s parents. Monsieur and Madame Lorrain, 


Pierrette, 


15 


retail shop-keepers at Pen-Hoel, a village in Vendee, 
situated in that part of it which is called the Marais. 
These Lorrains, grandfather and grandmother of Pier- 
rette Lorrain, sold wood for building purposes, slates, 
tiles, pantiles, pipes, etc. Their business, either from 
their own incapacity or through ill-luck, did badly, and 
gave them scarcely enough to live on. The failure 
of the well-known firm of Colinet at Nantes, caused 
by the events of 1814 which led to a sudden fall in 
colonial products, deprived them of twenty-four thou- 
sand francs which they had just deposited with that 
house. 

The arrival of their daughter-in-law was therefore 
welcome to them. Her pension of eight hundred 
francs was a handsome income at Pen-Hoel. The 
eight thousand francs which the widow’s half-brother 
and sister Rogron sent to her from her father’s estate 
(after a multitude of legal formalities) were placed 
by her in the Lorrains’ business, they giving her a 
mortgage on a little house which they owned at 
Nantes, let for three hundred francs, and barely worth 
ten thousand. 

Madame Lorrain the younger, Pierrette’s mother, 
died in 1819. The child of old Auffra}^ and his young 
wife was small, delicate, and weakly ; the damp cli- 
mate of the Marais did not agree with her. But her 
husband’s family persuaded her, in order to keep her 


16 


Pierrette. 


with them, that in no other quarter of the world could 
she find a more healthy region. She was so petted 
and tenderl}’ cared for that her death, when it came, 
brought nothing but honor to the oid Lorrains. 

Some persons declared that Brigaut, an old Ven- 
d4en, one of those men of iron who served under 
Charette, under Mercier, under the Marquis de Mon- 
tauran, and the Baron du Guenic, in the wars against 
the Republic, counted for a good deal in the willing- 
ness of the younger Madame Lorrain to remain in 
the Marais. If it were so, his soul must have been 
a trul3^ loving and devoted one. All Pen-Hoel saw 
him — he was called respectfully Major Brigaut, the 
grade he had held in the Catholic armj" — spending 
his days and his evenings in the Lorrains’ parlor, 
beside the widow of the imperial major. Toward the 
last, the curate of Pen-Hoel made certain represen- 
tations to old Madame Lorrain, begging her to per- 
suade her daughter-in-law to marry Brigaut, and prom- 
ising to have the major appointed justice of peace for 
the canton of Pen-Hoel, through the influence of the 
Vicomte de Kergarouet. The death of the poor young 
woman put an end to the matter. 

Pierrette was left in charge of her grandparents 
who owed her four hundred francs a year, interest on 
the little property placed in their hands. This small 
sum was now applied to her maintenance. The old 


Pierrette. 


17 


people, who were growing less and less fit for business, 
soon found themselves confronted by an active and 
capable competitor, against whom they said hard 
things, all the while doing nothing to defeat him. 
Major Brigaut, their friend and adviser, died six 
months after his friend, the younger Madame Lorrain, 
— perhaps of grief, perhaps of his wounds, of which 
he had received twenty-seven. 

Like a sound merchant, the competitor set about 
ruining his adversaries in order to get rid of all rivalry. 
With his connivance, the Lorrains borrowed money 
on notes, which they were unable to meet, and which 
drove them in their old days into bankruptcy. Pier- 
rette's claim upon the house in Nantes was superseded 
by the legal rights of her grandmother, who enforced 
them to secure the daily bread of her poor husband. 
The house was sold for nine thousand five hundred 
francs, of which one thousand five hundred went for 
costs. The remaining eight thousand francs came to 
Madame Lorrain, who lived upon the income of them 
in a sort of almshouse at Nantes, like that of Sainte- 
P4rine in Paris, called Saint- Jacques, where the two 
old people had bed and board for a humble payment. 

As it was impossible to keep Pierrette, their ruined 
little granddaughter, with them, the old Lorrains be- 
thought themselves of her uncle and aunt Rogron, in 
Provins, to whom they wrote. These Rogron s were 
2 


18 


Pierrette, 


dead. The letter might, therefore, have easily been 
lost ; but if anything here below can take the place of 
Providence, it is the post. Postal spirit, incomparably^ 
above public spirit, exceeds in brilliancy of resource 
and invention the ablest romance-writers. When the 
post gets hold of a letter, worth, to it, from three to 
ten sous, and does not immediately know where to 
find the person to whom that letter is addressed, it 
displays a financial anxiety only to be met with in 
very pertinacious creditors. The post goes and comes 
and ferrets through all the eighty-six departments. 
DifiSculties only rouse the genius of the clerks, who 
may really be called men-of-letters, and who set about 
to search for that unknown human being with as much 
ardor as the mathematicians of the Bureau give to 
longitudes. They literally ransack the whole king- 
dom. At the first ray of hope all the post-ofiSces 
in Paris are alert. Sometimes the receiver of a mis- 
sing letter is amazed at the network of scrawled di- 
rections which covers both back and front of the 
missive, — glorious vouchers for the administrative 
persistency^ with which the post has been at work. 
If a man undertook what the post accomplishes, he 
would lose ten thousand francs in travel, time, and 
money, to recover ten sous. The letter of the old 
Lorrains, addressed to Monsieur Rogron of Provins 
(who had then been dead a year) was convey’ed by 


Pierrette. 


19 


the post in due time to Monsieur Rogron, son of the 
deceased, a mercer in the rue Saint-Denis in Paris. 
And this is where the postal spirit obtains its greatest 
triumph. An heir is always more or less anxious to 
know if he has picked up ever}^ scrap of his inheritance, 
if he has not overlooked a credit, or a trunk of old 
clothes. The Treasury knows that. A letter addressed 
to the late Rogron at Provins was certain to pique the 
curiosity of Rogron, Jr., or Mademoiselle Rogron, the 
heirs in Paris. Out of that human interest the Treas- 
ury was able to earn sixty centimes. 

These Rogrons, toward whom the old Lorrains, 
though dreading to part with their dear little grand- 
daughter, stretched their supplicating hands, became, 
in this way, and most unexpectedly, the masters of 
Pierrette’s destiny. It is therefore indispensable to 
explain both their antecedents and their character. 


20 


Pierrette^ 


n. 

THE ROGRONS. 

Pl^iE Rogron, that innkeeper of Provins to whom 
old Auffray had married his daughter by his first wife, 
was an individual with an inflamed face, a veiny nose, 
and cheeks on which Bacchus had drawn his scarlet and 
bulbous vine-marks. Though short, fat, and pot-bellied, 
with stout legs and thick hands, he was gifted with the 
shrewdness of the Swiss innkeepers, whom he re- 
sembled. Certainly he was not handsome, and his wife 
looked like him. Never was a couple better matched. 
Rogron liked good living and to be waited upon by 
pretty girls. He belonged to the class of egoists whose 
behavior is brutal ; he gave way to his vices and did 
their will openly in the face of Israel. Grasping, sel- 
fish, without decency, and alwaj^s gratifying his own 
fancies, he devoured his earnings until the day when 
his teeth failed him. Selfishness stayed by him. In 
his old days he sold his inn, collected (as we have seen) 
all he could of his late father-in-law’s property, and went 
to live in the little house in the square of Provins, 
bought for a trifle from the widow of old Auffray 
Pierrette’s grandmother. 


Pierrette. 


21 


Rogron and his wife had about two thousand francs 
a year from twenty-seven lots of land in the neighbor- 
hood of Provins, and from the sale of their inn for 
twenty thousand. Old Auffray’s house, though out of 
repair, was inhabited just as it was by the Rogrons, — 
old rats like wrack and ruin. Rogron himself took to 
horticulture and spent his savings in enlarging the 
garden ; he carried it to the river’s edge between two 
walls and built a sort of stone embankment across the 
end, where aquatic nature, left to herself, displayed the 
charms of her flora. 

In the early years of their marriage the Rogrons 
had a son and a daughter, both hideous ; for such human 
beings degenerate. Put out to nurse at a low price, 
these luckless children came home in due time, after the 
worst of village training, — allowed to cry for hours after 
their wet-nurse, who worked in the flelds, leaving them 
shut up to scream for her in one of those damp, dark, low 
rooms which serve as homes for the French peasantry. 
Treated thus, the features of the children coarsened ; 
their voices grew harsh ; they mortified their mother’s 
vanity, and that made her strive to correct their bad 
habits by a sternness which the severity of their father 
converted through comparison to kindness. As a 
.general thing, they were left to run loose about the 
stables and courtyards of the inn, or the streets of the 
town ; sometimes they were whipped ; sometimes the^ 


22 


Pierrette* 


were sent, to get rid of them, to their grandfather 
Auffra}', who did not like them. The injustice the 
Rogrons declared the old man did to their children, 
justified them to them own minds in taking the greater 
part of “ the old scoundrel’s ” propertj’. However, 
Rogron did send his son to school, and did buj' him a 
man, one of his own cartmen, to save him from the 
conscription. As soon as his daughter, Sylvie, was 
thirteen, he sent her to Paris, to make her way as ap- 
prentice in a shop. Two years later he despatched 
his son, Jerome-Denis, to the same career. When his 
friends the carriers and those who frequented the inn, 
asked him what he meant to do with his children, 
Pere Rogron explained his system with a conciseness 
which, in view of that of most fathers, had the merit of 
frankness. 

When they are old enough to understand me I 
shall give ’em a kick and say : ‘ Go and make your 

own way in the world ! ’ ” he replied, empt3dng his 
glass and wiping his lips with the back of his hand. 
Then he winked at his questioner with a knowing look. 

Hey ! hey ! thej' are no greater fools than I was,” he 
added. My father gave me three kicks ; I shall only 
give them one ; he put one louis into m3’ hand ; I shall 
put ten in theirs, therefore the3’ ’ll be better off than I 
was. That ’s the way to do. After I ’m gone, what ’s 
left will be theirs. The notaries can find them and give 


Pierrette, 


23 


it to them. What nonsense to bother one^s self about 
children. Mine owe me their life. I ’ve fed them, and I 
don’t ask anything from them, — I call that quits, hey, 
neighbor ? I began as a cartman, but that did n’t prevent 
my marrying the daughter of that old scoundrel Auffray .” 

Sylvie Rogron was sent (with six hundred francs for 
her board) as apprentice to certain shopkeepers origi- 
nally from Provins and now settled in Paris in the rue 
Saint-Denis. Two years later she was “ at par,” as 
they say ; she earned her own living ; at any rate her 
parents paid nothing for her. That is what is called 
being “ at par” in the rue Saint-Denis. Sylvie had a 
salary of four hundred francs. At nineteen years of 
age she was independent. At twenty, she was the 
second demoiselle in the Maison Julliard, wholesale 
silk dealers at the “ Chinese Worm” rue Saint-Denis. 
The history of the sister was that of the brother. 
Young J4r6me-Denis Rogron entered the establishment 
of one of the largest wholesale mercers in the same 
street, the Maison Guepin, at the “ Three Distaffs.” 
When Sylvie Rogron, aged twent^^-one, had risen to be 
forewoman at a thousand francs a year J4r6me-Denis, 
with even better luck, was head-clerk at eighteen, with 
a salary of twelve hundred francs. 

Brother and sister met on Sundays and fete-days, 
which they passed in economical amusements ; the^ 
dined out of Paris, and went to Saint-Cloud, Meudon, 


24 


Pierrette, 


Belleville, or Vincennes. Towards the close of the 
year 1815 they clubbed their savings, amounting to 
about twenty thousand francs, earned by the sweat of 
their brows, and bought of Madame Gu4n4e the prop- 
erty and good-will of her celebrated shop, the “ Family 
Sister,” one of the largest retail establishments in the 
quarter. Sylvie kept the books and did the writing. 
Jerdme was master and head-clerk both. In 1821, 
after five years’ experience, competition became so 
fierce that it was all the brother and sister could do to 
carry on the business and maintain its reputation. 

Though Sylvie was at this time scarcel3' fort}", her nat- 
ural ugliness, combined with hard work and a certain 
crabbed look (caused as much bj- the conformation of 
her features as b}" her cares), made her seem like a 
woman of fift}". At thirt^^-eight J4r6me Rogron pre- 
sented to the eyes of his customers the silliest face that 
ever looked over a counter. His retreating forehead, 
flattened by fatigue, was marked b}" three long wrinkles. 
His grizzled hair, cut close, expressed in some indefin- 
able way the stupidity of a cold-blooded animal. The 
glance of his bluish eyes had neither flame nor thought 
in it. His round, flat face excited no s^^mpath}", nor 
even a laugh on the lips of those who might be exam- 
ining the varieties of the Parisian species ; on the con- 
trar}", it saddened them. He was, like his father, short 
and fat, but his figure lacked the latter’s brutal obesity, 


Pierrette. 


25 


and showed, instead, an almost ridiculous debility. His 
father’s high color was changed in him to the livid flab- 
biness peculiar to persons who live in close back-shops, 
or in those railed cages called counting-rooms, for- 
ever tying up bundles, receiving and making change, 
snarling at the clerks, and repeating the same old 
speeches to customers. 

The small amount of brains possessed by the brother 
and sister had been wholly absorbed in maintaining 
their business, in getting and keeping money, and in 
learning the special laws and usages of the Parisian 
market. Thread, needles, ribbons, pins, buttons, tail- 
ors’ furnishings, in short, the enormous quantity of 
things which go to make up a mercer’s stock, had 
taken all their capacity. Outside of their business they 
knew absolutely nothing ; they were even ignorant of 
Paris. To them the great city was merely a region 
spreading around the Rue Saint-Denis. Their narrow 
natures could see no fleld except the shop. They 
were clever enough in nagging their clerks and their 
young women and in proving them to blame. Their 
happiness lay in seeing all hands busy at the counters, 
exhibiting the merchandise, and folding it up again. 
When they heard the six or eight voices of the young 
men and women glibly gabbling the consecrated phrases 
by which clerks reply to the remarks of customers, the 
day was flne to them, the weather beautiful ! But on 


26 


Pierrette. 


the really fine days, when the blue of the heavens 
brightened all Paris, and the Parisians walked about 
to enjoy themselves and cared for no “goods” but 
those thej’ carried on their back, the day was overcast 
to the Rogrons. “Bad weather for sales,” said that 
pair of imbeciles. 

The skill with which Rogron could tie up a parcel 
made him an object of admiration to all his apprentices. 
He could fold and tie and see all that happened in the 
street and in the farthest recesses of the shop by the 
time he handed the parcel to his customer with a 
“Here it is, madame ; nothing else to-day?” But the 
poor fool would have been ruined without his sister. 
Sylvie had common-sense and a genius for trade. She 
advised her brother in their purchases and would piti- 
lessl}" send him to remote parts of France to save a 
trifie of cost. The shrewdness which all women more 
or less possess, not being emplo3’ed in the service of 
her heart, had drifted into that of speculation. A busi- 
ness to pay for, — that thought was the mainspring 
which kept the machine going and gave it an infernal 
activity. 

Rogron was really only head-clerk ; he understood 
nothing of his business as a whole ; self-interest, that 
great motor of the mind, had failed in his case to in- 
struct him. He was often aghast when his sister 
ordered some article to be sold below cost, foreseeing 


Pierrette, 


27 


the end of its fashion ; later he admired her idiotically 
for her cleverness. He reasoned neither ill nor well ; 
he was simply incapable of reasoning at all; but he 
had the sense to subordinate himself to his sister, and 
he did so from a consideration that was outside of the 
business. “ She is my elder,” he said. Perhaps an 
existence like his, always solitar}^ reduced to the sat- 
isfaction of mere needs, deprived of money and all 
pleasures in youth, may explain to physiologists and 
thinkers the clownish expression of the face, the feeble- 
ness of mind, the vacant silliness of the man. His 
sister had steadily prevented him from marrying, afraid 
perhaps to lose her power over him, and seeing only 
a source of expense and injury in some woman who 
would certainly be younger and undoubtedly less ugly 
than herself. 

Silliness has two ways of comporting itself; it talks, 
or is silent. Silent silliness can be borne ; but Ro- 
gron’s silliness was loquacious. The man had a habit 
of chattering to his clerks, explaining the minutiae of 
the business, and ornamenting his talk with those 
flat jokes which may be called the “chaff” of shop- 
keeping. Rogron, listened to, of course, by his sub- 
ordinates and perfectly satisfled with himself, had 
come at last into possession of a phraseology of his 
own. This chatterer believed himself an orator. The 
necessity of explaining to customers what they want, 


28 


Pierrette, 


of guessing at their desires, and giving them desires 
for what they do not want, exercises the tongue of 
all retail shop-keepers. The petty dealer acquires the 
faculty of uttering words and sentences in which there 
is absolutely no meaning, but which have a marked 
success. He explains to his customers matters of 
manufacture that they know nothing of; that alone 
gives him a passing superiority over them ; but take 
him away from his thousand and one explanations 
about his thousand and one articles, and he is, rela- 
tively to thought, like a fish out of water in the sun. 

Rogron and Sylvie, two mechanisms baptized by 
mistake, did not possess, latent or active, the feelings 
which give life to the heart. Their natures were shriv- 
elled and harsh, hardened by toil, by privation, by 
the remembrance of their sufferings during a long and 
cruel apprenticeship to life. Neither of them com- 
plained of their trials. They were not so much im- 
placable as impracticable in their dealings with others 
in misfortune. To them, virtue, honor, loyalty, all 
human sentiments consisted solely in the payment of 
their bills. Irritable and irritating, without feelings, 
and sordid in their economy, the brother and sister 
bore a dreadful reputation among the other merchants 
of the rue Saint-Denis. Had it not been for their 
connection with Provins, where they went three or 
four times a 3’ear, when the}" could close the shop 


Pierrette, 


29 


for a day or two, they would have had no clerks oi 
young women. But old Rogron, their father, sent them 
all the unfortunate young people of his neighborhood, 
whose parents wished to start them in business in Paris. 
He obtained these apprentices by boasting, out of vanity, 
of his son’s success. Parents, attracted by the prospect 
of their children being well-trained and closely watched, 
and also, by the hope of their succeeding, eventually, 
to the business, sent whichever child was most in the 
way at home to the care of the brother and sister. 
But no sooner had the clerks or the young women 
found a way of escape from that dreadful establish- 
ment than they fled, with rejoicings that increased 
the already bad name of the Rogrons. New victims 
were supplied yearly by the indefatigable old father. 

From the time she was fifteen, Sylvie Rogron, trained 
to the simpering of a saleswoman, had two faces, — 
the amiable face of the seller, the natural face of 
a sour spinster. Her acquired countenance was a 
marvellous bit of mimicry. She was all smiles. Her 
voice, soft and wheedling, gave a commercial charm 
to business. Her real face was that we have already 
seen projecting from the half-opened blinds ; the mere 
sight of her would have put to fiight the most resolute 
Cossack of 1815, much as that horde were said to 
like all kinds of Frenchwomen. 

When the letter from the Lorrains reached the 


30 


Pierrette, 


brother and sister, they were in mourning for theii 
father, from whom thej^ inherited the house which 
had been as good as stolen from Pierrette’s grand- 
mother, also certain lands bought by their father, 
and certain moneys acquired by usurious loans and 
mortgages to the peasantry, whose bits of ground the 
old drunkard expected to possess. The yearly taking 
of stock was just over. The price of the “ Family 
Sister” had, at last, been paid in full. The Rogrons 
owned about sixty thousand francs’ worth of merchan- 
dise, forty thousand in a bank or in their cash-box, 
and the value of their business. Sitting on a bench 
covered with striped green Utrecht velvet placed in 
a square recess just behind their private counter (the 
counter of their forewoman being similar and directly 
opposite) the brother and sister consulted as to what 
they should do. All retail shopkeepers aspire to be- 
come members of the bourgeoisie. By selling the 
good-will of their business, the pair would have over 
a hundred and fifty thousand francs, not counting the 
inheritance from their father. B}’ placing their present 
available property in the public Funds, they would 
each obtain about four thousand francs a year, and 
by taking the proceeds of their business, when sold, 
they could repair and improve the house they inherited 
from their father, which would thus be a good in- 
vestment. They could then go and live in a house 


Pierrette. 


81 


of their own in Provins. Their forewoman was the 
daughter of a rich farmer at Donnemarie, burdened 
with nine children, to whom he had endeavored to 
give a good start in life, being aware that at his 
death his property, divided into nine parts, would be 
but little for any one of them. In five years, however, 
the man had lost seven children, — a fact which made 
the forewoman so interesting that Rogron had tried, 
unsuccessfully, to get her to marry him ; but she 
showed an aversion for her master which baflied his 
manoeuvres. Besides, Mademoiselle Sylvie was not 
in favor of the match ; in fact, she steadily opposed 
her brother’s marriage, and sought, instead, to make 
the shrewd young woman their successor. 

No passing observer can form the least idea of the 
cryptogamic existence of a certain class of shopkeepers ; 
he looks at them and asks himself, “ On what, and why, 
do they live ? whence have they come ? where do they 
go ? ” He is lost in such questions, but finds no answer 
to them. To discover the feeble seed of poesy which 
lies in those heads and fructifies in those lives, it is 
necessary to dig into them ; and when we do that we 
soon come to a thin subsoil beneath the surface. The 
Parisian shopkeeper nurtures his soul on some hope or 
other, more or less attainable, without which he would 
doubtless perish. One dreams of building or manag- 
ing a theatre ; another longs for the honors of may- 


32 


Pierrette. 


oralty ; this one desires a country-house, ten miles 
from Paris, with a so-called “ park,” which he will adorn 
with statues of tinted plaster and fountains which squirt 
mere threads of water, but on which he will spend 
a mint of money ; others, again, dream of distinc- 
tion and a high grade in the National Guard. Provins, 
that terrestrial paradise, filled the brother and sister 
with the fanatical longings which all the lovely towns of 
France inspire in their inhabitants. Let us say it to 
the glory of La Champagne, this love is warranted. 
Provins, one of the most charming towns in all France, 
rivals Frangistan and the valley of Cashmere ; not only 
does it contain the poesy of Saadi, the Persian Homer, 
but it offers many pharmaceutical treasures to medical 
science. The crusades brought roses from Jericho to 
this enchanting vallej^, where by chance they gained 
new charms while losing none of their colors. The 
Provins roses are known the world over. But Provins 
is not only the French Persia, it is also Baden, Aix, 
Cheltenham, — for it has medicinal springs. This was 
the spot which appeared from time to time before the 
ej^es of the two shopkeepers in the muddy regions of 
Saint-Denis. 

After crossing the gray plains which lie between La 
Ferte-Gaucher and Provins, a desert and yet pro- 
ductive, a desert of wheat, j^ou reach a hill. Suddenly 
you behold at your feet a town watered by two rivers ; 


Pierrette. 


33 


at the feet of the rock on which you stand stretches a 
verdant valley, full of enchanting lines and fugitive hori- 
zons. If you come from Paris you will pass through 
the whole length of Provins on the everlasting high- 
road of France, which here skirts the hillside and 
is encumbered with beggars and blind men, who will 
follow you with their pitiful voices while you try to 
examine the unexpected picturesqueness of the region. 
If you come from Troyes you will approach the town 
on the valley side. The chMeau, the old town, and its 
former ramparts are terraced on the hillside, the new 
town is below. They go by the names of Upper and 
Lower Provins. The upper is an airy town with steep 
streets commanding fine views, surrounded by sunken 
road-ways and ravines filled with chestnut trees which 
gash the sides of the hill with their deep gulleys. 
The upper town is silent, clean, solemn, surmounted by 
the imposing ruins of the old chMeau. The lower is a 
town of mills, watered by the Voulzie and the Durtain, 
two rivers of Brie, narrow, sluggish, and deep ; a town 
of inns, shops, retired merchants ; filled with diligences, 
travelling-carriages, and waggons. The two towns, or 
rather this town with its historical memories, its melan- 
choly ruins, the gayety of its valley, the romantic charm 
of its ravines filled with tangled shrubbery and wild- 
flowers, its rivers banked with gardens, excites the 
love of aU its children, who do as the Auvergnats, the 


34 


Pierrette, 


Savoyards, in fact, all French folks do, namely, leave 
Provins to make their fortunes, and always return. 
“Die in one’s form,” the proverb made for hares and 
faithful souls, seems also the motto of a Provins native. 

Thus the two Rogrons thought constantly of their 
dear Provins. While Jerome sold his thread he saw 
the Upper town ; as he piled up the cards on which wer^' 
buttons he contemplated the vallej’ ; when he rolled 
and unrolled his ribbons he followed the shining rivers. 
Looking up at his shelves he saw the ravines where he 
had often escaped his father’s anger and gone a-nutting 
or gathering blackberries. But the little square in the 
Lower town was the chief object of his thoughts ; he 
imagined how he could improve his house : he dreamed 
of a new front, new bedrooms, a salon, a billiard-room, 
a dining-room, and the kitchen garden out of which he 
would make an English pleasure-ground, with lawns, 
grottos, fountains, and statuary. The bedrooms at 
present occupied by the brother and sister, on the 
second floor of a house with three windows front and 
six storeys high in the rue Saint-Denis, were furnished 
with the merest necessaries, yet no one in Paris had 
finer furniture than they — in fancy. When Jerome 
walked the streets he stopped short, struck with ad- 
miration at the handsome things in the upholsterers’ 
windows, and at the draperies he coveted for his 
house. When he came home he would say to his 


Pierrette, 


35 


sistei* : round in such a shop, such and such a 

piece of furniture that will just do for the salon.” The 
next da\^ he would buy another piece, and another, and 
so on. He rejected, the following month, the articles of 
the month before. The Budget itself, could not have 
paid for his architectural schemes. He wanted every- 
thing he saw, but abandoned each thing for the last 
thing. When he saw the balconies of new houses, 
when he studied external ornamentation, he thought all 
such things, mouldings, carvings, etc., out of place in 
Paris. Ah ! ” he would say, those fine things would 
look much better at Provins.” When he stood on his 
doorstep leaning against the lintel, digesting his morn- 
ing meal, with a vacant eye, the mercer was gazing at 
the house of his fancy gilded by the sun of his dream ; 
he walked in his garden ; he heard the jet from his 
fountain falling in pearly drops upon a slab of lime- 
stone ; he played on his own billiard-table ; he gathered 
his own fiowers. 

Sylvie, on the other hand, was thinking so deepl}", 
pen in hand, that she forgot to scold the clerks ; she 
was receiving the bourgoisie of Provins, she was look- 
ing at herself in the mirrors of her salon, and admiring 
the beauties of a marvellous cap. The brother and 
sister began to think the atmosphere of the rue Saint- 
Denis unhealthy, and the smell of the mud in the 
markets made them long for the fragrance of the 


86 


Pierrette. 


Provins roses. They were the victims of a genuine 
nostalgia, and also of a monomania, frustrated at 
present by the necessity of selling their tapes and 
bobbins before they could leave Paris. The promised 
land of the valle}' of Provins attracted these Hebrews 
all the more because they had really suffered, and for 
a long time, as they crossed breathlessly the sandy 
wastes of a mercer’s business. 

The Lorrains’ letter reached them in the midst of 
meditations inspired by this glorious future. They 
knew scarcely anything about flieir cousin, Pierrette 
Lorrain. Their father got possession of the Auffray 
property after the}^ left home, and the old man said 
little to any one of his business affairs. They hardly 
remembered their aunt Lorrain. It took an hour of 
genealogical discussion before they made her out to be 
the younger sister of their own mother hy the second 
marriage of their grandfather Auffra}^ It immediately 
struck them that this second mariiage had been fatally 
injurious to their interests by dividing the Auffray 
property between the two daughters. In times past 
they had heard their father, who was given to sneering, 
complain of it. 

The brother and sister considered the application of 
the Lorrains from the point of view of such reminis*- 
cences, which were not at all favorable for Pierrette. 
To take charge of an orphan, a girl, a cousin, who 


Pierrette. 


37 


might become their legal heir in case neither of them 
married, — this was a matter that needed discussion. 
The question was considered and debated under all its 
aspects. In the first place, they had never seen Pier- 
rette. Then, what a trouble it would be to have a 
young girl to look after. Wouldn’t it commit them to 
some obligations towards her? Could they send the 
girl away if they did not like her? Besides, wouldn’t 
they have to marr}" her? and if Jer6me found a j^oke- 
mate among the heiresses of Provins they ought to 
keep all their property for his children. A yokemate 
for J4r6me, according to Sylvie, meant a stupid, rich 
and ugly girl who would let herself be governed. 
They decided to refuse the Lorrain request. Sylvie 
agreed to write the answer. Business being rather 
urgent just then she delayed writing, and the fore- 
woman coming forward with an offer for the stock and 
good-will of the ‘ ‘ Family Sister,” which the brother 
and sister accepted, the matter went entirely out of 
the old maid’s mind. 

Sylvie Rogron and her brother departed for Provins 
four years before the time when the coming of Brigaut 
threw such excitement into Pierrette’s life. But the 
doings of the pair after their arrival at Provins are as 
necessary to relate as their life in Paris ; for Provins 
was destined to be not less fatal to Pierrette than the 
commercial antecedents of her cousins ! 


38 


Pierrette^ 


in. 

PATHOLOGY OF RETIRED MERCERS. 

When the petty shopkeeper who has come to Paris 
from the provinces returns to the provinces from Paris 
he brings with him a few ideas ; then he loses them in 
the habits and ways of provincial life into which he 
plunges, and his reforming notions leave him. From 
this there do result, however, certain trifling, slow, 
successive changes by which Paris scratches the sur- 
face of the provincial towns. This process marks the 
transition of the ex-shopkeeper into the substantial 
country bourgeois, but it acts like an illness upon him. 
No retail shopkeeper can pass with impunity from his 
perpetual chatter into dead silence, from his Parisian 
activity to the stillness of provincial life. When these 
worthy persons have laid by property they spend a 
portion of it on some desire over which they have long 
brooded and into which they now turn their remaining 
impulses, no longer restrained b}" force of will. Those 
who have not been nursing a fixed idea either travel 
or rush into the political interests of their municipality. 


Pierrette. 


89 


Others take to hunting or fishing and torment their 
farmers or tenants ; others again become usurers or 
stock-jobbers. As for the scheme of the Rogrons, 
brother and sister, we know what that was ; they had 
to satisfy an imperious desire to handle the trowel and 
remodel their old house into a charming new one. 

This fixed idea produced upon the square of Lower 
Provins the front of the building which Brigaut had 
been examining ; also the interior arrangements of the 
house and its handsome furniture. The contractor did 
not drive a nail without consulting the owners, without 
requiring them to sign the plans and specifications, 
without explaining to them at full length and in every 
detail the nature of each article under discussion, where 
it was manufactured, and what were its various prices. 
As to the choicer things, each, they were told, had been 
used by Monsieur Tiphaine, or Madame Julliard, or 
Monsieur the mayor, the notables of the place. The 
idea of having things done as the rich bourgeois of 
Provins did them carried the day for the contractor. 

Oh, if Monsieur Garceland has it in his house, put 
it in,*’ said Mademoiselle Rogron. ‘^It must be all 
right ; his taste is good.” 

“ Sjdvie, see, he wants us to have ovolos in the cor- 
nice of the corridor.” 

‘ ‘ Do you call those ovolos ? ” 

“ Yes, mademoiselle.** 


40 


Pierrette. 


What an odd name ! I never heard it before.” 

“ But you have seen the thing ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

‘‘ Do you understand Latin ? ” 

« No.” 

“ Well, it means eggs — from the Latin mwmP 

‘^What queer fellows you are, you architects!” 
cried Rogron. “It is stepping on egg-shells to deai 
with you.” 

“ Shall we paint the corridor?” asked the builder. 

“Good heavens, no!” cried Sylvie. “That would 
be five hundred francs more ! ” 

“Oh, but the salon and the staircase are too pretty 
not to have the corridor decorated too,” said the man. 
‘^That little Madame Lesourd had hers painted last 
year.” 

“ And now her husband, as king’s attorney, is obliged 
to leave Provins.” 

“ Ah, he ’ll be chief justice some of these days,” said 
the builder. 

“ How about Monsieur Tiphaine?” 

“ Monsieur Tiphaine ? he ’s got a pretty wife and is 
sure to get on. He ’ll go to Paris. Shall we paint the 
corridor ? ” 

“Yes, yes,” said Rogron. “The Lesourds must be 
made to see that we are as good as they.” 

The first year after the Rogrons returned to Provins 


Pierrette, 


41 


was entirely taken up by such discussions, by the pleas- 
ure of watching the workmen, by the surprise occa- 
sioned to the townspeople and the replies to questions 
of all kinds which resulted therefrom, and also by the 
attempts made by Sylvie and her brother to be socially 
intimate with the principal families of Provins. 

The Rogrons had never gone into any society ; they 
had never left their shop, knowing absolutely no one in 
Paris, and now they were athirst for the pleasures of 
social life. On their arrival in Provins they found their 
former masters in Paris (long since returned to the 
provinces), Monsieur and Madame Julliard, lately of 
the Chinese Worm,’’ their children and grandchildren ; 
the Gu4pin family, or rather the Guepin clan, the 
youngest scion of which now kept the ‘‘Three Dis- 
taffs ; ” and thirdly, Madame Gu6n4e from whom they 
had purchased the “ Family Sister,” and whose three 
daughters were married and settled in Provins. These 
three races, Julliard, Guepin, and Gu4n4e, had spread 
through the town like dog-grass through a lawn. The 
mayor. Monsieur Garceland, was the son-in-law of 
Monsieur Gu4pin ; the curate, Abb6 Peroux, was own 
brother to Madame Julliard ; the judge. Monsieur 
Tiphaine junior, was brother to Madame Gu4n4e, who 
signed herself “ n^e Tiphaine.” 

The queen of the town was the beautiful Madame 
Tiphaine junior, only daughter of Madame Roguin, 


42 


Pierrette, 


the rich wife of a former notary in Paris, whose name 
was never mentioned. Clever, delicate, and pretty, 
married in the provinces to please her mother, who for 
special reasons did not want lier with her, and took her 
from a convent onl}" a few days before the wedding, 
M41anie Tiphaine considered herself an exile in Provins, 
where she behaved to admiration. Handsomeh’ dowered, 
she still had hopes. As for Monsieur Tiphaine, his old 
father had made to his eldest daughter Madame Guen4e 
such advances on her inheritance that an estate worth 
eight thousand francs a year, situated within fifteen 
miles of Provins, was to come wholly to him. Conse- 
quently, the Tiphaines would possess, sooner or later, 
some fort}’^ thousand francs a year, and were not 
“ badly off,” as they say. The one overwhelming de- 
sire of the beautiful Madame Tiphaine was to get 
Monsieur Tiphaine elected deputy. As deputy he would 
become a judge in Paris ; and she was firmly resolved to 
push him up into the Ro 3 ’al courts. For these reasons 
she tickled all vanities and strove to please all parties ; 
and — what is far more difficult — she succeeded. Twice 
a week she received the bourgeoisie of Provins at her 
house in the Upper town. This intelligent 3 ’oung 
woman of twent}" had not as \"et made a single blunder 
or misstep on the slipper^" path she had taken. She 
gratified everybody’s self-love, and petted their hobbies ; 
serious with the serious, a girl with ghis, instinctively’ a 


Pierrette, 


48 


mother with mothers, gay with j^oung wives and dis- 
posed to help them, gracious to all, — in short, a pearl, 
a treasure, the pride of Provins. She had never yet 
said a word of her intentions and wishes, but all the 
electors of Provins were awaiting the time when their 
dear Monsieur Tiphaine had reached the required age 
for nomination. Every man in the place, certain of 
his own talents, regarded the future deputy as his par- 
ticular friend, his protector. Of course. Monsieur 
Tiphaine would attain to honors ; he would be Keeper 
of the Seals, and then, what would n’t he do for 
Provins ! 

Such were the pleasant means by which Madame 
Tiphaine had come to rule over the little town. Ma- 
dame Guenee, Monsieur Tiphaine’s sister, after having 
married her eldest daughter to Monsieur Lesourd, 
prosecuting attorney, her second to Monsieur Martener, 
the doctor, and the third to Monsieur Auffray, the 
notary, had herself married Monsieur Galardon, the 
collector. Mother and daughters all considered Mon- 
sieur Tiphaine as the richest and ablest man in the 
family. The prosecuting attorney had the strong- 
est interest in sending his uncle to Paris, expecting 
to step into his shoes as judge of the local court of 
Provins. The four ladies formed a sort of court 
round Madame Tiphaine, whose ideas and advice they 
followed on all occasions. Monsieur Julliard, the eldest 


44 


Pierrette, 


son of the old merchant, who had married the only 
daughter of a rich farmer, set up a sudden, secret, 
and disinterested passion for Madame Tiphaine, that 
angel descended from the Parisian skies. The clever 
Melanie, too clever to involve herself with a Julliard, 
but quite capable of keeping him in the condition 
of Amadis and making the most of his folly, advised 
him to start a journal, intending herself to play the 
part of Egeria. For the last two years, therefore, 
Julliard, possessed by his romantic passion, had pub- 
lished the said newspaper, called the “ Bee-hive,” 
which contained articles literary, archaeological, and 
medical, written in the family. The advertisements 
paid expenses. The subscriptions, two hundred in 
all, made the profits. Every now and then melan- 
choly verses, totally incomprehensible in La Brie, ap- 
peared, addressed, ‘‘ To Her! ! ! ” with three exclam- 
ation marks. The clan Julliard was thus united to 
the other clans, and the salon of Madame Tiphaine 
became, naturally, the first in the town. The few 
aristocrats who lived in Provins were, of course, 
apart, and formed a single salon in the Upper town, 
at the house of the old Comtesse de Breautey. 

During the first six months of their transplantation, 
the Rogrons, favored by their former acquaintance 
with several of these people, were received, first by 
Madame Julliard the elder, and b}’ the former Madame 


Pierrette, 


45 


Gu4n^e, now Madame Galardon (from whom they 
had bought their business), and next, after a good 
deal of difliculty, bj" Madame Tiphaine. All parties 
wished to study the Rogrons before admitting them. 
It was difficult, of course, to keep out merchants of 
the rue Saint-Denis, originally from Provins, who had 
returned to the town to spend their fortunes. Still, 
the object of all society is to amalgamate persons 
of equal wealth, education, manners, customs, accom- 
plishments, and character. Now the Guepins, Guenees, 
and Julliards had a better position among the bour- 
geoisie than the Rogrons, whose father had been held 
in contempt on account of his private life, and his 
conduct in the matter of the Auffray property, — the 
facts of which were known to the notary Auffray, 
Madame Galardon’s son-in-law. 

In the social life of these people, to which Madame 
Tiphaine had given a certain tone of elegance, all was 
homogeneous ; the component parts understood each 
other, knew each other’s characters, and behaved and 
conversed in a manner that was agreeable to all. The 
Rogrons flattered themselves that beiug received by 
Monsieur Garceland, the mayor, they would soon be 
on good terms with all the best families in the town. 
Sylvie applied herself to learn boston. Rogron, in- 
capable of playing a game, twirled his thumbs and 
had nothing to say except to discourse on his new 


46 


Pierrette. 


house. Words seemed to choke him ; he would get 
up, try to speak, become frightened, and sit down 
again, with comical distortion of the lips. Sylvie 
naively betrayed her natural self at cards. Sharp, 
irritable, whining when she lost, insolent when she 
won, nagging and quarrelsome, she annoyed her part- 
ners as much as her adversaries, and became the 
scourge of society. And yet, possessed by a silly, 
unconcealed ambition, Rogron and his sister were bent 
on playing a part in the societ3^ of a little town already 
in possession of a close corporation of twelve allied 
families. Allowing that the restoration of their house 
had cost them thirty thousand francs, the brother and 
sister possessed between them at least ten thousand 
francs a yea,r. This they considered wealth, and with 
it they endeavored to impress society, which imme- 
diately took the measure of their vulgarity, crass ig- 
norance, and foolish envj^. On the evening when they 
were presented to the beautiful Madame Tiphaine, 
who had alread3^ eyed them at Madame Garceland’s 
and at Madame Julliard the elder’s, the queen of the 
town remarked to Julliard junior, who stayed a few 
moments after the rest of the company to talk with 
her and her husband : — 

“You all seem to be taken with those Rogrons.** 

“ No, no,” said Amadis, “ they bore my mother 
and annoy my wife. When Mademoiselle Sylvie was 


Pierrette, 


47 


apprenticed, thirty years ago, to my father, none of 
them could endure her.” 

“ I have a great mind,” said Madame Tiphaine, 
putting her pretty foot on the bar of the fender, “to 
make it understood that my salon is not an inn.” 

Julliard raised his eyes to the ceiling, as if to say, 
“Good heavens? what wit, what intellect! ” 

“ I wish my society to be select ; and it certainly 
will not be if I admit those Rogrons.” 

“They have neither heart, nor mind, nor manners ; 
said Monsieur Tiphaine. “ If, after selling thread for 
twenty years, as my sister did for example — ” 

“ Your sister, my dear,” said his wife in a paren- 
thesis, “ cannot be out of place in any salon.” 

“ — if,” he continued, “ people are stupid enough not 
to throw off the shop and polish their manners, if they 
don’t know anj- better than to mistake the Counts of 
Champagne for the accounts of a wine-shop, as Rogron 
did this evening, the}" had better, in my opinion, stay 
at home.” 

“They are simply impudent,” said Julliard. “To 
hear them talk you would suppose there was no other 
handsome house in Provins but theirs. They want to 
crush us ; and after all, they have hardly enough to 
live on.” 

“ If it was only the brother,” said Madame Tiphaine, 
“ one might put up with him ; he is not so aggressive. 


48 


Pierrette, 


Give him a Chinese puzzle and he will stay in a 
corner quietly enough ; it would take him a whole 
winter to find it out. But Mademoiselle Sylvie, with 
that voice like a hoarse hyena and those lobster-claws 
of hands ! Don’t repeat all this, Julliard.’’ 

When Julliard had departed the little woman said to 
her husband : — 

“I have aborigines enough whom I am forced to 
receive ; these two will fairly kill me. With your per- 
mission, I shall deprive myself of their society.” 

“You are mistress in 3"Our own house,” replied he; 
“ but that will make enemies. The Rogrons will fling 
themselves into the opposition, which hitherto has had 
no real strength in Provins. That Rogron is already 
intimate with Baron Gouraud and the law^^er Vinet.” 

“ Then,” said Melanie, laughing, “ they will do you 
some service. Where there are no opponents, there is 
no triumph. A liberal conspiracy, an illegal cabal, a 
struggle of any kind, will bring you into the foreground.” 

The justice looked at his 3"Oung wife with a sort of 
alarmed admiration. 

The next day it was whispered about that the 
Rogrons had not altogether succeeded in Madame 
Tiphaine’s salon. That lady’s speech about an inn was 
immensely admired. It was a whole month before she 
returned Mademoiselle Sylvie’s visit. Insolence of 
this kind is very much noticed in the provinces. 


Pierrette, 


49 


During the evening which Sylvie had spent at 
Madame Tiphaine’s a disagreeable scene occurred be- 
tween herself and old Madame Julliard while playing 
boston, apropos of a trick which Sylvie declared the old 
lady had made her lose on purpose ; for the old maid, 
who liked to trip others, could never endure the same 
game on herself. The next time she was invited out 
the mistress took care to make up the card-tables before 
she arrived ; so that Sylvie was reduced to wandering 
from table to table as an onlooker, the players glancing 
at her with scornful eyes. At Madame Julliard senior’s 
house, they played whist, a game Sjdvie did not know. 

The old maid at last understood that she was under a 
ban ; but she had no conception of the reason of it. 
She fancied herself an object of jealousy to all these 
persons. After a time she and her brother received 
no invitations, but they still persisted in paying evening 
visits. Satirical persons made fun of them, — not spite- 
fully, but amusingly ; inveigling them to talk absurdly 
about the eggs in their cornice, and their wonderful 
cellar of wine, the like of which was not in Provins. 

Before long the Rogron house was completely fin- 
ished, and the brother and sister then resolved to give 
several sumptuous dinners, as much to return the 
civilities they had received as to exhibit their luxury. 
The invited guests accepted from curiosity only. The 
first dinner was given to the leading personages of the 

4 . 


50 


Pierrette* 


town ; to Monsieur and Madame Tiphaine, with whom, 
however, the Rogrons had never dined ; to Monsieur 
and Madame Julliard, senior and junior; to Monsieur 
Lesourd, Monsieur le cure, and Monsieur and Madame 
Galardon. It was one of those interminable provincial 
dinners, where 3’ou sit at table from five to nine o’clock- 
Madame Tiphaine had introduced into Provins the Par- 
isian custom of taking leave as soon as coffee had been 
served. On this occasion she had company at home and 
was anxious to get away. The Rogrons accompanied 
her husband and herself to the street door, and when the}' 
returned to the salon, disconcerted at not being able to 
keep their chief guests, the rest of the party were 
preparing to imitate Madame Tiphaine’s fashion with 
cruel provincial promptness. 

“The}' won’t see our salon lighted up,” said Sylvie, 
“and that’s the show of the house.” 

The Rogrons had counted on surprising their guests. 
It was the first time any one had been admitted to 
the now celebrated house, and the company assembled 
at Madame Tiphaine’s was eagerly awaiting her opinion 
of the marvels of the “ Rogron palace.” 

“Well!” cried little Madame Martener, “you’ve 
seen the Louvre ; tell us all about it.” 

“All? Well, it would be like the dinner, — not 
much.” 


“But do describe it.” 


Pierrette. 


51 


Well, to begin with, that front door, the gilded 
grating of which we have all admired,” said Madame 
Tiphaine, opens upon a long corridor which divides 
the house unequally ; on the right side there is one 
window, on the other, two. At the garden end, the 
corridor opens with a glass door upon a portico with 
steps to the lawn, where there ’s a sun dial and a 
plaster statue of Spartacus, painted to imitate bronze. 
Behind the kitchen, the builder has put the staircase, 
and a sort of larder which we were spared the sight 
of. The staircase, painted to imitate black marble 
with yellow veins, turns upon itself like those you 
see in cafes leading from the ground-floor to the 
entresol. The balustrade, of walnut with brass or- 
naments and dangerously slight, was pointed out to 
us as one of the seven wonders of the world. The 
cellar stairs run under it. On the other side of the 
corridor is the dining-room, which communicates by 
folding-doors with a salon of equal size, the windows 
of which look on the garden.” 

“Dear me, is there no ante-chamber?” asked 
Madame Auffray. 

The corridor, full of draughts, answers for an ante- 
chamber,” replied Madame Tiphaine. “ Our friends 
have had, they assured us, the eminently national, 
liberal, constitutional, and patriotic feeling to use 
none but French woods in the house ; so the floor 


52 


Pierrette, 


in the dining-room is chestnut, the sideboards, tables, 
and chairs, of the same. White calico window-cur- 
tains, with red borders, are held back by vulgar red 
straps ; these magnificent draperies run on wooden 
curtain rods ending in brass lion’s-paws. Above one 
of the sideboards hangs a dial suspended by a sort 
of napkin in gilded bronze, — an idea that seemed to 
please the Rogrons hugel3^ They tried to make me 
admire the invention ; all I could manage to say was 
that if it was ever proper to wrap a napkin round 
a dial it was certainly in a dining-room. On the 
sideboard were two huge lamps like those on the 
counter of a restaurant. Above the other sideboard 
hung a barometer, excessively ornate, which seems 
to play a great part in their existence ; Rogron gazed 
at it as he might at his future wife. Between the 
two windows is a white porcelain stove in a niche over- 
loaded with ornament. The walls glow with a mag- 
nificent paper, crimson and gold, such as you see 
in the same restaurants, where, no doubt, the Rogrons 
chose it. Dinner was served on white and gold china, 
with a dessert service of light blue with green flowers 
but they showed us another service in earthenware 
for everyday use. Opposite to each sideboard was 
a large cupboard containing linen. All was clean, 
new, and horribly sharp in tone. However, I admit 
the dining-room ; it has some character, though dis- 


Pierrette. 


58 


agreeable; it represents that of the masters of the 
house. But there is no enduring the five engravings 
that hang on the walls ; the Minister of the Interior 
ought really to frame a law against them. One was 
Poniatowski jumping into the Elster; the others, 
Napoleon pointing a cannon, the defence at Clichy, 
and the two Mazeppas, all in gilt frames of the vul- 
garest description, fit to carry off the prize of disgust. 
Oh ! how much I prefer Madame Julliard’s pastels 
of fruit, those excellent Louis XV. pastels, which 
are in keeping with the old dining-room and its gray 
panels, — defaced by age, it is true, but they possess 
the true provincial characteristics that go so well with 
old family silver, precious china, and our simple habits. 
The provinces are the provinces ; they are only ridicu- 
lous when they mimic Paris. I prefer this old salon 
of my husband’s forefathers, with its heavy curtains 
of green and white damask, the Louis XV. mantel- 
piece, the twisted pier-glasses, the old mirrors with 
their beaded mouldings, and the venerable card- tables. 
Yes, I prefer my old Sevres vases in royal blue, 
mounted on copper, my clock with those impossible 
flowers, that rococco chandelier, and the tapestried 
furniture, to all the finery of the Rogron salon.” 

“ What is the salon like?” said Monsieur Martener, 
delighted with the praise the handsome Parisian be 
stowed so adroitly on the provinces. 


54 


Pierrette, 


“ As for the salon, it is all red, — the red Made* 
moiselle Sylvie turns when she loses at cards.” 

“ S^’lvan-red,” said Monsieur Tiphaine, whose spark- 
ling saying long remained in the vocabulary of Provins. 

“ Window-curtains, red ; furniture, red ; mantel- 
piece, red, veined yellow, candlelabra and clock ditto 
mounted on bronze, common and heavy in design,— 
Roman standards with Greek foliage ! Above the clock 
is that inevitable good-natured lion which looks at 3’ou 
with a simper, the lion of ornamentation, with a big 
ball under his feet, sj'^mbol of the decorative lion, who 
passes his life holding a black ball, — exacti}' like a 
deputy of the Left. Perhaps it is meant as a consti- 
tutional myth. The face of the clock is curious. The 
glass over the chimney is framed in that new fashion 
of applied mouldings which is so trumpery and vulgar. 
From the ceiling hangs a chandelier carefully wrapped 
in green muslin, and rightly too, for it is in the 
worst taste, the sharpest tint of bronze with hideous 
ornaments. The walls are covered with a red flock 
paper to imitate velvet inclosed in panels, each panel 
decorated with a chromo lithograph in one of those 
frames festooned with stucco flowers to represent 
wood-carving. The furniture, in cashmere and elm- 
wood, consists, with classic uniformity, of two sofas, 
two easy-chairs, two armchairs, and six common chairs. 
A vase in alabaster, called k la Medicis, kept under 


Pierrette* 


55 


glass stands on a table between the windows ; before the 
windows, which are draped with magnificent red silk 
curtains and lace curtains under them, are card-tables. 
The carpet is Aubusson, and 3’ou may be sure the 
Rogrons did not fail to lay hands on that most vulgar 
of patterns, large flowers on a red ground. The room 
looks as if no one ever lived there ; there are no 
books, no engravings, none of those little knick-knacks 
we all have lying about,” added Madame Tiphaine, 
glancing at her own table covered with fashionable 
trifles, albums, and little presents given to her by 
friends; “and there are no flowers, — it is all cold 
and barren, like Mademoiselle S3dvie herself. Buffon 
says the st^de is the man, and certainly salons have 
styles of their own.” 

From this sketch everybody can see the sort of house 
the brother and sister lived in, though the^" can never 
imagine the absurdities into which a clever builder 
dragged the ignorant pair, — new inventions, fantastic 
ornaments, a system for preventing smokj^ chimneys, 
another for preventing damp walls ; painted marquetry 
panels on the staircase, colored glass, superfine locks, 
— in short, all those vulgarities which make a house ex- 
pensive and gratify the bourgeois taste. 

No one chose to visit the Rogrons, whose social plans 
thus came to nothing. Their invitations were refused 
under various excuses, — the evenings were already en* 


66 


Pierrette, 


gaged to Madame Garceland and the other ladies of the 
Provins world. The Rogrons had supposed that all 
that was required to gain a position in society was to 
give a few dinners. But no one any longer accepted 
them, except a few young men who went to make fun 
of their host and hostess, and certain diners-out who 
went ever^'where. 

Frightened at the dead loss of forty thousand francs 
swallowed up without profit in what she called her 
“ dear house.” Sylvie now set to work to recover it by 
economy. She gave no more dinners, which had cost 
her forty or fifty francs without the wines, and did not 
fulfil her social hopes, hopes that are as hard to 
realize in the provinces as in Paris. She sent away 
her cook, took a countrj^-girl to do the menial work, 
and did her own cooking, as she said, “ for pleasure.” 

Fourteen months after their return to Provins, the 
brother and sister had fallen into a solitary and wholly 
unoccupied condition. Their banishment from society 
roused in Sylvie’s heart a dreadful hatred against the 
Tiphaines, Julliards and all the other members of the 
social world of Provins, which she called “the clique,” 
and with whom her personal relations became extremely 
cold. She would gladly have set up a rival clique, but 
the lesser bourgeoisie was made up of either small 
shopkeepers who were onlj^ free on Sundays and fete- 
days, or smirched individuals like the lawyer Vinet and 


Pierrette, 


57 


Doctor N^raud, and wholly inadmissible Bonapartists 
like Baron Gouraud, with whom, however, Rogron 
thoughtlessly allied himself, though the upper bour- 
geoisie had warned him against them. 

The brother and sister were, therefore, forced to sit 
by the fire of the stove in the dining-room, talking over 
their former business, trying to recall the faces of their 
customers and other matters they had intended to for- 
get. By the end of the second winter ennui weighed 
heavily on them. They did not know how to get 
through each day ; sometimes as they went to bed the 
words escaped them, “There's another over!” They 
dragged out the morning by staying in bed, and dress- 
ing slowly. Rogron shaved himself every day, exam- 
ined his face, consulted his sister on any changes he 
thought he saw there, argued with the servant about 
the temperature of his hot water, wandered into the 
garden, looked to see if the shrubs were budding, sat 
at the edge of the water where he had built himself a 
kiosk, examined the joinery of his house, — had it 
sprung? had the walls settled, the panels cracked? 
or he would come in fretting about a sick hen, and 
complaining to his sister, who was nagging the servant 
as she set the table, of the dampness which was coming 
out in spots upon the plaster. The barometer was 
Rogron’s most useful bit of property. He consulted it 
at all hours, tapped it familiarly like a friend, saying; 


58 


Pierrette, 


^‘Vile weather!’^ to which his sister would repty, 

Pooh ! it is only seasonable.” If an}^ one called to 
see him the excellence of that instrument was his chief 
topic of conversation. 

Breakfast took up some little time ; with what delib- 
eration those two human beings masticated their food ! 
Their digestions were perfect; cancer of the stomach 
was not to be dreaded by them. The3' managed to get 
along till twelve o’clock by reading the “ Bee-hive ” 
and the Constitutionnel.” The cost of subscribing to 
the Parisian paper was shared hy Vinet the lawj’er, and 
Baron Gouraud. Rogron himself carried the paper to 
Gouraud, who had been a colonel and lived on the 
square, and whose long yarns were Rogron’s delight ; 
the latter sometimes puzzled over the warnings he had 
received, and asked himself how such a livel}' com- 
panion could be dangerous. He was fool enough to 
tell the colonel he had been warned against him, and 
to repeat all the “ clique*’ had said. God knows how 
the colonel, who feared no one, and was equally to be 
dreaded with pistols or a sword, gave tongue about 
Madame Tiphaine and her Amadis, and the ministerial- 
ists of the Upper town, persons capable of an^’ villan^’ 
to get places, and who counted the votes at elections 
to suit themselves, etc. 

About two o’clock Rogron started for a little walk. 
He was quite happy if some shopkeeper standing 


Pierrette, 


59 


on the threshold of his door would stop him and 
say, ‘^Well, pere Rogron, how goes it with you?'* 
Then he would talk, and ask for news, and gather all 
the gossip of the town. He usually went as far as the 
Upper town, sometimes to the ravines, according to 
the weather. Occasionally he would meet old men 
taking their walks abroad like himself. Such meetings 
were joyful events to him. There happened to be in 
Provins a few men weary of Parisian life, quiet scholars 
who lived with their books. Fancy the bewilderment 
of the ignorant Rogron when he heard a depuU’-judge 
named Desfondrilles, more of an archaeologist than a 
magistrate, saying to old Monsieur Martener, a really 
learned man, as he pointed to the valley : — 

“ Explain to me why the idlers of Europe go to Spa 
instead of coming to Provins, when the springs here 
have a superior curative value recognized by the 
French faculty, — a potential virtue worthy of the medi- 
cinal properties of our roses.” 

“ That is one of the caprices of caprice,” said the 
old gentleman. “ Bordeaux wine was unknown a hun- 
dred years ago. Marechal de Richelieu, one of the noted 
men of the last century, the French Alcibiades, was ap- 
pointed governor of Guyenne. His lungs were diseased, 
and, heaven knows why ! the wine of the country 
did him good and he recovered. Bordeaux instantly 
made a hundred millions ; the marshal widened its 


60 


Pierrette, 


territory to Angoul§me, to Cahors, — in short, to over a 
hundred miles of circumference ! it is hard to tell where 
the Bordeaux vineyards end. And yet they haven’t 
erected an equestrian statue to the marshal in Bor- 
deaux ! 

“ Ah ! if anything of that kind happens to Provins,” 
said Monsieur Desfondrilles, “ let us hope that some- 
where in the Upper or Lower town they will set up a 
bas-relief of the head of Monsieur Opoix, the re-dis- 
coverer of the mineral waters of Provins.’* 

“ My dear friend, the revival of Provins is impos- 
sible,” replied Monsieur Martener; “the town was 
made bankrupt long ago.” 

“ What ! ” cried Rogron, opening his eyes very wide. 

“ It was once a capital, holding its own against 
Paris in the twelfth centuiy, when the Comtes de 
Champagne held their court here, just as King Ren6 
held his in Provence,” replied the man of learning ; “for 
in those days civilization, gayety, poesy, elegance, and 
women, in short all social splendors, were not found 
exclusively in Paris. It is as difiScult for towns and 
cities as it is for commercial houses to recover from 
ruin. Nothing is left to us of the old Provins but the 
fragrance of our historical glory and that of our roses, 
— and a sub-prefecture ! ” 

“Ah! what mightn’t France be if she had only 
preserved her feudal capitals I ” said Desfondrilles 


Pierrette. 


61 


<'^Can sub-prefects replace the poetic, gallant, warlike 
race of the Thibaults who made Provins what Ferrara 
was to Ital}", Weimar to Germany, — what Munich is 
trying to be to-day.” 

“Was Provins ever a capital? ” asked Rogron. 

“ Why ! where do you come fi-om ? ” exclaimed the 
archaeologist. “Don’t you know,” he added, striking 
the ground of the Upper town where they stood with 
his cane, “ don’t you know that the whole of this part 
of Provins is built on catacombs ? ” 

“ Catacombs? ” 

“ Yes, catacombs, the extent and height of which 
are 3’et undiscovered. They are like the naves of 
cathedrals, and there are pillars in them.” 

“ Monsieur is writing a great archaeological work to 
explain these strange constructions” interposed Mon- 
sieur Martener, seeing that the deputy-judge was about 
to mount his hobby. 

Rogron came home much comforted to know that 
his house was in the valle3\ The crypts of Pro- 
vins kept him occupied for a week in explorations, 
and gave a topic of conversation to the unhappy 
celibates for man}^ evenings. 

In the course of these ramblings Rogron picked up 
various bits of information about Provins, its inhabitants, 
their marriages, together with stale political news ; all of 
which he narrated to his sister. Scores of times in 


62 


Pierrette. 


his walks he would stop and say, — often to the 
same person on the same da}^, — “ Well, what ’s the 
news ? ” When he reached home he would fling himself 
on the sofa like a man exhausted with labor, whereas he 
was only worn out with the burden of his own dulness. 
Dinner came at last, after he had gone twenty times to 
the kitchen and back, compared the clocks, and opened 
and shut all the doors of the house. So long as the 
brother and sister could spend their evenings in paying 
visits they managed to get along till bedtime ; but 
after they were compelled to stay at home those even- 
ings became like a parching desert. Sometimes persons 
passing through the quiet little square would hear 
unearthly noises as though the brother were throttling 
the sister ; a moment’s listening would show that they 
were only yawning. These two human mechanisms, 
having nothing to grind between their rusty wheels, 
were creaking and grating at each other. The 
brother talked of marrj ing, but only in despair. He 
felt old and weary ; the thought of a woman frightened 
him. S3dvie, who began to see the necessity" of having 
a third person in the home, suddenly" remembered the 
little cousin, about whom no one in Provins had yet 
inquired, the friends of Madame Lorrain probably" sup- 
posing that mother and child were both dead. 

Sylvie Rogron never lost anything ; she was too 
thoroughly an old maid even to mislay the smallest 


Pierrette, 


63 


article ; but she pretended to have suddenly found the 
Lorrains’ letter, so as to mention Pierrette naturally to 
her brother, who was greatly pleased at the possibility 
of having a little girl in the house. Sylvie replied to 
Madame Lorrain’s letter half affectionately, half com- 
mercially, as one may sa}", explaining the delay by 
their change of abode and the settlement of their affairs. 
She seemed desirous of receiving her little cousin, and 
hinted that Pierrette would perhaps inherit twelve 
thousand francs a year if her brother Jerome did not 
marr3\ 

Perhaps it is necessary to have been, like Nebuchad- 
nezzar, something of a wild beast, and shut up in a 
cage at the Jardin des Plantes without other prey than 
the butcher’s meat doled out by the keeper, or a retired 
merchant deprived of the joys of tormenting his clerks, 
to understand the impatience with which the brother 
and sister awaited the arrival of their cousin Lorrain. 
Three days after the letter had gone, the pair were 
already asking themselves when she would get there. 

Sylvie perceived in her spurious benevolence towards 
her poor cousin a means of recovering her position in 
the social world of Provins. She accordingly went to 
call on Madame Tiphaine, of whose reprobation she 
was conscious, in order to impart the fact of Pierrette’s 
approaching arrival, — deploring the girl’s unfortunate 
position, and posing herself as being only too happy 


64 


Pierrette. 


to succor her and give her a position as daughter and 
future heiress. 

“ You have been rather long in discovering her,” 
said Madame Tiphaine, with a touch of sarcasm. 

A few words said in a low voice by Madame Garce- 
land, while the cards were being dealt, recalled to the 
minds of those who heard her the shameful conduct of 
old Rogron about the Auffray property ; the notarj^ ex- 
plained the iniquity. 

“Where is the little girl now?” asked Monsieur 
Tiphaine, politely. 

“ In Brittany,” said Rogron. 

“ Brittany is a large place,” remarked Monsieur 
Lesourd. 

“ Her grandfather and grandmother LoiTain wrote 
to us — when was that, my dear ? ” said Rogron ad- 
dressing his sister. 

Sylvie, who was just then asking Madam Garce- 
land where she had bought the stuff for her gown, 
answered hastily, without thinking of the effect of 
her words : — 

“ Before we sold the business.” 

“And have you only just answered the letter, ma- 
demoiselle?” asked the notarj". 

Sylvie turned as red as a live coal. 

“We wrote to the Institution of Saint- Jacques,* 
remarked Rogron. 


Pierrette, 


65 


“ That is a sort of hospital or almshouse for old peo- 
ple/’ said Monsieur Desfondrilles, who knew Nantes. 
“ She can’t be there ; the}" receive no one under 
sixty.” 

“She is there, with her grandmother Lorrain,” said 
Rogron. 

“ Her mother had a little fortune, the eight thousand 
francs which your father — no, I mean of course your 
grandfather — left to her,” said the notary, making the 
blunder intentionall}’. 

“ Ah ! said Rogron, stupidly, not understanding the 
notary’s sarcasm. 

“Then you know nothing about your cousin’s posi- 
tion or means ? ” asked Monsieur Tiphaine. 

“If Monsieur Rogron had known it,” said the 
deputy -judge, “ he would never have left her all this 
time in an establishment of that kind. I remember 
now that a house in Nantes belonging to Monsieur 
and Madame Lorrain was sold under an order of the 
court, and that Mademoiselle Lorrain’s claim was 
swallowed up. I know this, for I was commissioner 
at the time.” 

The notary spoke of Colonel Lorrain, who, had he 
lived, would have been much amazed to know that 
his daughter was in such an institution. The Rog- 
rons beat a retreat, saying to each other that the world 
was very malicious. Sylvie perceived that the news o/ 


66 


Pierrette, 


her benevolence had missed its effect, — in fact, she had 
lost ground in all minds ; and she felt that henceforth 
she was forbidden to attempt an intimacy with the 
upper class of Provins. After this evening the Rog- 
rons no longer concealed their hatred of that class and 
all its adherents. The brother told the sister the scan- 
dals that Colonel Gouraud and the lawyer Vinet had 
put into his head about the Tiphaines, the Guenees, 
the Garcelands, the Julliards, and others : — 

“ I declare, Sylvie, I don’t see whj Madame Tiphaine 
should turn up her nose at shopkeeping in the rue Saint- 
Denis ; it is more honest than what she comes from. 
Madame Roguin, her mother, is cousin to those Guil- 
laumes of the ‘ Cat-playing-ball ’ who gave up the 
business to Joseph Lebas, their son-in-law. Her father 
is that Roguin who failed in 1819, and ruined the house 
of Cesar Birotteau. Madame Tiphaine’s fortune was 
stolen, — for what else are you to call it when a notary’s 
wife who is very rich lets her husband make a fraudulent 
bankruptcy ? Fine doings ! and she marries her daughter 
in Provins to get her out of the way, — all on account of 
her own relations with du Tillet. And such people set 
up to be proud ! Well, well, that ’s the world ! ” 

On the day when Jerome Rogron and his sister 
Sylvie began to declaim against “the clique” they 
were, without being aware of it, on the road to having 
a society of their own ; their house was to become a 


Pierrette. 


67 


rendezvous for other interests seeking a centre, — those 
of the hitherto floating elements of the liberal party in 
Provins. And this is how it came about : Tlie launch 
of the Rogrons in society had been watched with great 
curiosity by Colonel Gouraud and the lawyer Vinet, 
two men drawn together, first b}" their ostracism, next 
by their opinions. They both professed patriotism and 
for the same reason, — they wished to become of conse- 
quence. The Liberals in Provins were, so far, confined 
to one old soldier who kept a cafe, an innkeeper. Mon- 
sieur Cournant a notary, Doctor Neraud, and a few 
stray persons, mostl}’ farmers or those who had bought 
lands of the public domain. 

The colonel and the lawyer, delighted to lay hands 
on a fool whose money would be useful to their schemes, 
and who might himself, in certain cases, be made to 
bell the cat, while his house would serve as a meet- 
ing-ground for the scattered elements of the party, 
made the most of the Rogrons’ ill-will against the 
upper classes of the place. The three had already a 
slight tie in their united subscription to the “ Consti- 
tutionnel ; ’’ it would certainly not be difficult for the 
colonel to make a Liberal of the ex-mercer, though 
Rogron knew so little of politics that he was capable 
of regarding the exploits of Sergeant Mercier as those 
of a brother shopkeeper. 

The expected arrival of Pierrette brought to sudden 


68 


Pierrette, 


fruition the selfish ideas of the two men, inspired as 
they were by the folly and ignorance of the celibates. 
Seeing that Sylvie had lost all chance of establishing 
herself in the good society of the place, an afterthought 
came to the colonel. Old soldiers have seen so many 
horrors in all lands, so many grinning corpses on 
battle-fields, that no physiognomies repel them ; and 
Gouraud began to cast his ej^es on the old maid’s for- 
tune. This imperial colonel, a short, fat man, wore 
enormous rings in ears that were bush}^ with tufts of 
hair. His sparse and grizzl^' whiskers were called in 
1799 “fins.” His jolly red face was rather discolored, 
like those of all who had lived to tell of the Beresina. 
The lower half of his big, pointed stomach marked the 
straight line which characterizes a cavalry officer. 
Gouraud had commanded the Second Hussars. His 
gray moustache hid a huge blustering mouth, — if we 
may use a term which alone describes that gulf. He 
did not eat his food, he engulfed it. A sabre cut had 
slit his nose, by which his speech was made thick 
and very nasal, like that attributed to Capuchins. His 
hands, which were short and broad, were of the kind 
that make women say: “You have the hands of a 
rascal.” His legs seemed slender for his torso. In 
that fat and active body an absolutely lawless spirit 
disported itself, and a thorough experience of the 
things of life, together with a profound contempt fot 


Pierrette, 


69 


social conventions, lay hidden beneath the apparent 
indifference of a soldier. Colonel Gouraud wore the 
cross of an officer of the Legion of honor, and his 
emoluments from that, together with his salary as a 
retired officer, gave him in all about three thousand 
francs a year. 

The lawyer, tall and thin, had liberal opinions in 
place of talent, and his only revenue was the meagre 
profits of his office. In Provins lawyers plead their 
own cases. The court was unfavorable to Vinet on 
account of his opinions ; consequently, even the farmers 
who were Lijberals, when it came to lawsuits preferred 
to employ some lawyer who was more congenial to 
the judges. Vinet was regarded with disfavor in other 
ways. He was said to have seduced a rich girl in the 
neighborhood of Coulommiers, and thus have forced 
her parents to marry her to him. Madame Vinet was 
a Chargeboeuf, an old and noble family of La Brie, 
whose name comes from the exploit of a squire during 
the expedition of Saint Louis to Egypt. She incurred 
the displeasure of her father and mother, who arranged, 
unknown to Vinet, to leave their entire fortune to their 
son, doubtless charging him privately, to pay over a 
portion of it to his sister’s children. 

Thus the first bold effort of the ambitious man was a 
failure. Pursued by poverty, and ashamed not to give 
his wife the means of making a suitable appearance, he 


70 


Pierrette, 


had made desperate efforts to enter public life, but the 
Chargeboeuf family refused him their influence. These 
Royalists disapproved, on moral grounds, of his forced 
marriage ; besides, he was named Vinet, and how could 
they be expected to protect a plebeian ? Thus he was 
driven from branch to branch when he tried to get 
spme good out of his marriage. Repulsed b}’ every 
one, filled with hatred for the family of his wife, for 
the government which denied him a place, for the social 
world of Provins which refused to admit him, Vinet 
submitted to his fate ; but his gall increased. He 
became a Liberal in the belief that his fortune might 
yet be made by the triumph of the opposition, and he 
lived in a miserable little house in the Upper town 
from which his wife seldom issued. Madame Vinet had 
found no one to befriend her since her marriage except 
an old Madame de Chargeboeuf, a widow with one 
daughter, who lived at Troyes. The unfortunate young 
woman, destined for better things, was absolutely alone 
in her home with a single child. 

There are some kinds of poverty which may be 
nobly accepted and gayly borne ; but Vinet, devoured 
by ambition, and feeling himself guilty towards his 
wife, was full of darkling rage ; his conscience grew 
elastic ; and he finally came to think any means of 
success permissible. His 3’Oung face changed. Per- 
sons about the courts were sometimes frightened as 


Pierrette. 


71 


they looked at his viperish, flat head, his slit mouth, 
his eyes gleaming through glasses, and heard his sharp, 
persistent voice which rasped their nerves. His muddy 
skin, with its sickly tones of green and yellow, expressed 
the jaundice of his balked ambition, his perpetual dis- 
appointments and his hidden wretchedness. He could 
talk and argue ; he was well-informed and shrewd, and 
was not without smartness and metaphor. Accustomed 
to look at everything from the standpoint of his own 
success, he was well fitted for a politician. A man 
who shrinks from nothing so long as it is legal, is 
strong ; and Vinet’s strength la}" there. 

This future athlete of parliamentary debate, who was 
destined to share in proclaiming the dj’nasty of the 
house of Orleans had a terrible influence on Pierrette’s 
fate. At the present moment he was bent on making 
for himself a weapon by founding a newspaper in 
Provins. After studying the Rogrons at a distance 
(the colonel aiding him) he had come to the conclusion 
that the brother might be made useful. This time he 
was not mistaken ; his days of poverty were over, after 
seven wretched 3'ears, when even his daily bread was 
sometimes lacking. The day when Gouraud told him 
in the little square that the Rogrons had finally quar- 
relled with the bourgeois aristocracy of the Upper 
town, he nudged the colonel in the ribs significantly, 
and said, with a knowing look : 


72 


Pierrette. 


‘‘One woman or another — handsome or ugly — you 
don’t care ; marry Mademoiselle Rogron and we can 
organize something at once.” 

“ I have been thinking of it,” replied Gouraud, “ but 
the fact is they have sent for the daughter of Colonel 
Lorrain, and she’s their next of kin.” 

“ You can get them to make a will in your favor. 
Ha ! you would get a very comfortable house.” 

“ As for the little girl — well, well, let ’s see her,” 
said the colonel, with a leering and thoroughly wicked 
look, which proved to a man of Vinet’s qualitj" how 
little respect the old trooper could feel for any girl. 


Pierrette. 


73 


nr. 


PIERRETTE. 

After her grandfather and grandmother entered the 
sort of hospital in which they sadly expected to end 
their days, Pierrette, being young and proud, suffered 
so terribly at living there on charity that she was thank- 
ful when she heard she had rich relations. When Bri- 
gaut, the son of her mother’s friend the major, and the 
companion of her childhood, who was learning his trade 
as a cabinet-maker at Nantes, heard of her departure 
he offered her the money to pay her way to Paris in 
the diligence, — sixty francs, the total of his pour-hoires 
as an apprentice, slowly amassed, and accepted by Pier- 
rette with the sublime indifference of true affection, 
showing that in a like case she herself would be 
affronted by thanks. 

Brigaut was in the habit of going every Sunday to 
Saint- Jacques to play with Pierrette and try to con- 
sole her. The vigorous young workman knew the 
dear delight of bestowing a complete and devoted pro- 
tection on an object involuntarily chosen by his heart. 
More than once he and Pierrette, sitting on Sundays 


74 


Pierrette. 


in a corner of the garden, had embroidered the veil 
of the future with their youthful projects •: the appren- 
tice, armed with his plane, scoured the world to make 
their fortune, while Pierrette waited. 

In October, 1824, when the child had completed her 
eleventh year, she was entrusted by the two old people 
and by Brigaut, all three sorrowfully sad, to the con- 
ductor of the diligence from Nantes to Paris, with an 
entreaty to put her safely into the diligence from Paris 
to Provins and to take good care of her. Poor Brigaut ! 
he ran like a dog after the coach looking at his dear 
Pierrette as long as he was able. In spite of her signs 
he ran over three miles, and when at last he was ex- 
hausted his eyes, wet with tears, still followed her. 
She, too, was crying when she saw him no longer run- 
ning by her, and putting her head out of the window 
she watched him, standing stock-still and looking after 
her, as the lumbering vehicle disappeared. 

The Lorrains and Brigaut knew so little of life that 
the girl had not a penny when she arrived in Paris. 
The conductor, to whom she had mentioned her rich 
friends, paid her expenses at the hotel, and made the 
conductor of the Provins diligence pay him, telling him 
to take good care of the girl and to see that the charges 
were paid by the famil}’, exactly as though she were a 
case of goods. Four days after her departure from 
Nantes, about nine o’clock of a Monday night, a kind 


Pierrette. 


75 


old conductor of the Messageries-royales, took Pierrette 
by the hand, and while the porters were discharging in 
the Grand’Rue the packages and passengers for Pro- 
vins, he led the little girl, whose only baggage was a 
bundle containing two dresses, two chemises, and two 
pairs of stockings, to Mademoiselle Rogron’s house, 
which was pointed out to him by the director at the 
coach oflSce. 

“ Good-evening, mademoiselle and the rest of the 
company. I’ve brought you a cousin, and here she 
is ; and a nice little girl too, upon my word. You have 
forty-seven francs to pay me, and sign my book.’’ 

Mademoiselle Sylvie and her brother were dumb with 
pleasure and amazement. 

“ Excuse me,” said the conductor, “ the coach is 
waiting. Sign my book and pay me forty-seven francs, 
sixty centimes, and whatever you please for myself 
and the conductor from Nantes ; we ’ve taken care of 
the little girl as if she were our own ; and paid for her 
beds and her food, also her fare to Provins, and other 
little things.” 

“ Forty-seven francs, twelve sous ! ” said Sylvie. 

“ You are not going to dispute it? ” cried the man. 

“ Where ’s the bill? ” said Rogron. 

“ Bill ! look at the book.” 

“ Stop talking, and pay him,” said Sylvie, “ You see 
there ’s nothing else to be done.” 


76 


Pierrette, 


Rogron went to get the money, and gave the man 
forty-seven francs, twelve sous. 

“And nothing for my comrade and me?” said the 
conductor. 

Sylvie took two francs from the depths of the old 
velvet bag which held her kej^s. 

“ Thank you, no,” said the man ; “ keep ’em yourself. 
We would rather care for the little one for her own 
sake.” He picked up his book and departed, saying 
to the servant-girl : “ What a pair ! it seems there are 
crocodiles out of Egypt ! ” 

“ Such men are always brutal, ”said Sylvie, who over- 
heard the words. 

“ They took good care of the little girl, an3^how,” said 
Adele with her hands on her hips. 

“We don’t have to live with him,” remarked 
Rogron. 

“Where ’s the little one to sleep? ” asked AdHe. 

Such was the arrival of Pierrette Lorrain in the 
home of her cousins, who gazed at her with stolid e^^es ; 
she was tossed to them like a package, with no inter- 
mediate state between the wretched chamber at Saint- 
Jacques and the dining-room of her cousins, which 
seemed to her a palace. She was shj^ and speechless. 
To all other ej^es than those of the Rogrons the little 
Breton girl would have seemed enchanting as she stood 
there in her petticoat of coarse blue flannel, with a pink 


Pierrette, 


77 


cambric apron, thick shoes, blue stockings, and a white 
kerchief, her hands being covered by red worsted mit- 
tens edged with white, bought for her by the conductor. 
Her dainty Breton cap (which had been washed in Paris, 
for the journey from Nantes had rumpled it) was like a 
halo round her happy little face. This national cap, of 
the finest lawn, trimmed with stiffened lace pleated in 
flat folds, deserves description, it was so dainty and sim- 
ple. The light coming through the texture and the lace 
produced a partial shadow, the soft shadow of a light 
upon the skin, which gave her the virginal grace that all 
painters seek and Leopold Robert found for the Raffael- 
esque face of the woman who holds a child in his picture 
of “ The Gleaners.” Beneath this fluted frame of light 
sparkled a white and rosy and artless face, glowing with 
vigorous health. The warmth of the room brought the 
blood to the cheeks, to the tips of the pretty ears, to 
the lips and the end of the delicate nose, making the 
natural white of the complexion whiter still. 

‘^Well, are not you going to say anything? I am 
your cousin Sylvie, and that is your cousin Rogron.” 

“ Do you want something to eat?” asked Rogron. 

“ When did you leave Nantes? ” asked Sylvie. 

“ Is she dumb? ” said Rogron. 

“ Poor little dear, she has hardly any clothes,” cried 
AdMe, who had opened the child’s bundle, tied up in a 
handkerchief of the old Lorrains. 


78 


Pierrette. 


‘‘Kiss your cousin,” said Sylvie. 

Pierrette kissed Kogron. 

“ Kiss your cousin,” said Rogron. 

Pierrette kissed Sylvie. 

“ She is tired out with her journey, poor little thing; 
she wants to go to sleep,” said Adele. 

Pierrette was overcome with a sudden and invincible 
aversion for her two relatives, — a feeling that no one 
had ever before excited in her. Sylvie and the maid 
took her up to bed in the room where Brigaut after- 
wards noticed the white cotton curtain. In it was a 
little bed with a pole painted blue, from which hung a 
calico curtain ; a walnut bureau without a marble top, a 
small table, a looking-glass, a very common night- table 
without a door, and three chairs completed the furniture 
of the room. The walls, which sloped in front, were 
hung with a shabby paper, blue with black flowers. The 
tiled floor, stained red and polished, was icy to the feet. 
There was no carpet except a strip at the bedside. The 
mantelpiece of common marble was adorned by a 
mirror, two candelabra in copper-gilt, and a vulgar 
alabaster cup in which two pigeons, forming handles, 
were drinking. 

“You will be comfortable here, my little girl?” 
said Sylvie. 

“Oh, it ’s beautiful ! ’’ said the child, in her silvery 


voice. 


Pierrette, 


79 


“ She ’s not diflacult to please,” muttered the stout 
servant. “ Sha’n’t I warm her bed? ” she asked. 

‘‘ Yes,” said Sylvie, the sheets may be damp.” 

AdMe brought one of her own night-caps when she 
returned with the warming-pan, and Pierrette, who had 
never slept in an3'thing but the coarsest linen sheets, 
was amazed at the fineness and softness of the cotton 
ones. When she was fairly’ in bed and tucked up, 
Adele, going downstairs with Sjdvie, could not refrain 
from saving, “ All she has is n’t worth three francs, 
mademoiselle.” 

Ever since her economical regime began, Sylvie had 
compelled the maid to sit in the dining-room so that 
one fire and one lamp could do for all ; except when 
Colonel Gouraud and Vinet came, on which occasions 
AdMe was sent to the kitchen. 

Pierrette’s arrival enlivened the rest of the evening. 

“We must get her some clothes to-morrow,” said 
Sylvie ; “ she has absolutely nothing.” 

“No shoes but those she had on, which weigh a 
pound,” said Adele. 

“That’s always so, in their part of the country,” 
remarked Rogron. 

“ How she looked at her room ! though it really 
is n’t handsome enough for a cousin of yours, ma- 
demoiselle.” 

“ It is good enough ; hold j^our tongue,” said Sjdvie. 


80 


Pierrette, 


“ Gracious, what chemises ! coarse enough to scratch 
her skin off; not a thing can she use here,** said 
Adele, empty ing the bundle. 

Master, mistress, and servant were bus}^ till past 
ten o’clock, deciding what cambric they should bu}" 
for the new chemises, how many pairs of stockings, 
how many under-petticoats, and what material, and in 
reckoning up the whole cost of Pierrette’s outfit. 

“ You won’t get off under three hundred francs,” 
said Rogron, who could remember the different prices, 
and add them up from his former shop-keeping habit. 

“ Three hundred francs ! ” cried S3’lvie. 

“Yes, three hundred. Add it up.” 

The brother and sister went over the calculation 
once more, and found the cost would be fully three 
hundred francs, not counting the making. 

“ Three hundred francs at one stroke ! ” said Sylvie 
to herself as she got into bed. 

Pierrette was one of those children of love whom 
love endows with its tenderness, its vivacit}" , its gaj^et}", 
its nobility, its devotion. Nothing had so far disturbed 
or wounded a heart that was delicate as that of a 
fawn, but which was now painfully repressed by the 
cold greeting of her cousins. If Brittany had been 
full of outward miser}", at least it was full of love. 
The old Lorrains were the most incapable of merchants, 


Pierrette. 


81 


but they were also the most loving, frank, caressing, 
of friends, like all who are incautious and free from 
calculation. Their little granddaughter had received 
no other education at Pen-Hoel than that of nature. 
Pierrette went where she liked, in a boat on the pond, 
or roaming the village and the fields with Jacques 
Brigaut, her comrade, exactly as Paul and Virginia 
might have done. Petted by everybody, free as air, 
they gayly chased the joys of childhood. In summer 
they ran to watch the fishing, they caught the many- 
colored insects, they gathered flowers, they gardened ; 
in winter they made slides, they built snow-men or 
huts, or pelted each other with snowballs. Welcomed 
by all, they met with smiles wherever they went. 

When the time came to begin their education, disas- 
ters came, too. Jacques, left without means at the 
death of his father, was apprenticed by his relatives 
to a cabinet-maker, and fed by charitj", as Pierrette 
was soon to be at Saint- Jacques. Until the little girl 
was taken with her grandparents to that asylum, she 
had known nothing but fond caresses and protection 
from every one. Accustomed to confide in so much 
love, the little darling missed in these rich relatives, 
so eagerl}" desired, the kindly looks and ways which 
all the world, even strangers and the conductors of 
the coaches, had bestowed upon her. Her bewilder- 
ment, already great, was increased by the moral 

6 


82 


Pierrette. 


atmosphere she had entered. The heart turns suddenl3' 
cold or hot like the bod}^. The poor child wanted to 
crj^, without knowing why ; but being verj' tired she 
went to sleep. 

The next morning, Pierrette being, like all countiy 
children, accustomed to get up early, was awake two 
hours before the cook. She dressed herself, stepping 
on tiptoe about her room, looked out at the little 
square, started to go downstairs and was struck with 
amazement b}" the beauties of the staircase. She 
stopped to examine all its details : the painted walls, 
the brasses, the various ornamentations, the window 
fixtures. Then she went down to the garden-door, but 
was unable to open it, and returned to her room to 
wait until Adele should be btirring. As soon as the 
woman went to the kitchen Pierrette flew to the 
garden and took possession of it, ran to the river, 
was amazed at the kiosk, and sat down in it ; truly, 
she had enough to see and to wonder at until her 
cousins were up. At breakfast Sjdvie said to her : — 

“Was it you, little one, who was trotting over 
my head b}’ da3^break, and making that racket on 
the stairs? You woke me so that I couldn’t go to 
sleep again. Y^ou must be very good and quiet, and 
amuse yourself without noise. Your cousin does n’t 
like noise.” 

“And you must wipe your feet,” said RogrOn. 


Pierrette, 


83 


“you went into the kiosk with your dirty shoes, and 
they *ve tracked all over the floor. Your cousin likes 
cleanliness. A great girl like you ought to be clean. 
Were n’t you clean in Brittany? But I recollect when 
I went down there to buy thread it was pitiable to 
see the folks, — they were like savages. At any rate 
she has a good appetite,” added Rogron, looking at his 
sister; “one would think she hadn’t eaten anything 
for days.” 

Thus, from the very start Pierrette was hurt by the 
remarks of her two cousins, — hurt, she knew not why. 
Her straightforward, open nature, hitherto left to it- 
self, was not given to reflection. Incapable of thinking 
that her cousins were hard, she was fated to find it out 
slowly through suffering. After breakfast the brother 
and sister, pleased with Pierrette’s astonishment at the 
house and anxious to enjoy it, took her to the salon 
to show her its splendors and teach her not to touch 
them. Many celibates, driven by loneliness and the 
moral necessity of caring for something, substitute 
factitious affections for natural ones ; they love dogs, 
cats, canaries, servants, or their confessor. Rogron 
and Sylvie had come to the pass of loving immoderately 
their house and furniture, which had cost them so dear. 
Sylvie began by helping Adele in the mornings to dust 
and arrange the furniture, under pretence that she did 
not know how to keep it looking as good as new. This 


84 


Pierrette, 


dusting was soon a desired occupation to her, and the 
furniture, instead of losing its value in her eyes, became 
ever more precious. To use things without hurting 
them or soiling them or scratching the woodwork or 
clouding the varnish, that was the problem which soon 
became the mania of the old maid’s life. Sjdvie had 
a closet full of bits of wool, wax, varnish, and brushes, 
which she had learned to use with the dexteritj" of a 
cabinet-maker; she had her feather dusters and her 
dusting-cloths; and she rubbed awa}’ without fear of 
hurting herself, — she was so strong. The glance of 
her cold blue eye, hard as steel, was forever roving 
over the furniture and under it, and you could as soon 
have found a tender spot in her heart as a bit of fluff 
under the sofa. 

After the remarks made at Madame Tiphaine’s, 
Sylvie dared not flinch from the three hundred francs 
for Pierrette’s clothes. During the first week her time 
was wholly taken up, and Pierrette’s too, by frocks to 
order and try on, chemises and petticoats to cut out 
and have made by a seamstress who went out by the 
day. Pierrette did not know how to sew. 

“ That ’s pretty bringing up ! ” said Rogron. “ Don’t 
you know how to do anything, little girl ? ” 

Pierrette, who knew nothing but how to love, made 
a pretty, childish gesture. 

“What did j’ou do in Brittany? ” asked Rogron. 


Pierrette. 


85 


played/’ she answered, naively. “Everybody 
played with me. Grandmamma and grandpapa they 
told me stories. Ah ! they all loved me ! 

“ Hey ! ” said Rogron ; “ did n’t you take it easy ! ” 

Pierrette opened her eyes wide, not comprehending. 

“ She is as stupid as an owl,” said Sylvie to Made- 
moiselle Borain, the best seamstress in Provins. 

“ She ’s so young,” said the workwoman, looking 
kindly at Pierrette, whose delicate little muzzle was 
turned up to her with a coaxing look. 

Pierrette preferred the sewing-women to her rela- 
tions. She was endearing in her ways with them, she 
watched their work, and made them those pretty 
speeches that seem like the flowers of childhood, and 
which her cousin had already silenced, for that gaunt 
woman loved to impress those under her with salutary 
awe. The sewing-women were delighted with Pierrette. 
Their work, however, was not carried on without many 
and loud grumblings. 

“That child will make us pay through the nose!” 
cried Sylvie to her brother. 

“ Stand still, my dear, and don’t plague us ; it is all 
for you and not for me,” she would say to Pierrette 
when the child was being measured. Sometimes it was, 
when Pierrette would ask the seamstress some question, 
“ Let Mademoiselle Borain do her work, and don’t talk 
to her ; it is not you who are paying for her time.” 


Pierrette. 


“Mademoiselle,” said Mademoiselle Borain, “am I 
to back-stitch this ? ” 

“ Yes, do it firmly ; I don’t want to be making such 
an outfit as this every day.” 

Sylvie put the same spirit of emulation into Pierrette’s 
outfit that she had formerly put into the house. She 
was determined that her cousin should be as well 
dressed as Madame Garceland’s little girl. She bought 
the child fashionable boots of bronzed kid like those the 
little Tiphaines wore, ver}^ fine cotton stockings, a corset 
by the best maker, a dress of blue reps, a pretty cape 
lined with white silk, — all this that she, Sylvie, might 
hold her own against the children of the women who 
had rejected her. The underclothes were quite in keep- 
ing with the visible articles of dress, for Sylvie feared 
the examining eyes of the various mothers. Pierrette’s 
chemises were of fine Madapolam calico. Mademoiselle 
Borain had mentioned that the sub-prefect’s little girls 
wore cambric drawers, embroidered and trimmed in the 
latest style. Pierrette had the same. Sylvie ordered 
for her a charming little drawn bonnet of blue velvet 
lined with white satin, precisely like the one worn by 
Dr. Martener’s little daughter. 

Thus attired, Pierrette was the most enchanting little 
girl in all Provins. On Sunda}", after church, all the 
ladies kissed her; Mesdames Tiphaine, Garoeland, Ga- 
lardon, Julliard, and the rest fell in love with the sweet 


Pierrette, 


87 


little Breton girl. This enthusiasm was deepl}’ flatter- 
ing to old Sylvie’s self-love ; she regarded it as less due 
to Pierrette than to her own benevolence. She ended, 
however, in being affronted by her cousin’s success. 
Pierrette was constantly invited out, and Sjdvie allowed 
her to go, always for the purpose of triumphing over 
“ those ladies.” Pierrette was much in demand for 
games or little parties and dinners with their own little 
girls. She had succeeded where the Rogrons had 
failed ; and Mademoiselle Sylvie soon grew indignant 
that Pierrette was asked to other children’s houses 
when those children never came to hers. The artless 
little thing did not conceal the pleasure she found in 
her visits to these ladies, whose affectionate manners 
contrasted strangely with the harshness of her two 
cousins. A mother would have rejoiced in the happi- 
ness of her little one, but the Rogrons had taken Pier- 
rette for their own sakes, not for hers ; their feelings, 
far from being parental, were dyed in selfishness and a 
sort of commercial calculation. 

The handsome outfit, the fine Sunday dresses, and 
the every-day frocks were the beginning of Pierrette’s 
troubles. Like all children free to amuse themselves, 
who are accustomed to follow the dictates of their own 
lively fancies, she was very hard on her clothes, her 
shoes, and above all on those embroidered drawers. 
A mother when she reproves her child thinks only of 


88 


Pierrette. 


the child ; her voice is gentle ; she does not raise it 
unless driven to extremities, or when the child is much 
in fault. But here, in this great matter of PieiTette^s 
clothes, the cousins’ money w^as the first consideration ; 
their interests were to be thought of, not the child’s. 
Children have the perceptions of the canine race for the 
sentiments of those who rule them ; thej^ know instinct- 
ivel}^ whether the}" are loved or only tolerated. Pure and 
innocent hearts are more distressed by shades of dif- 
ference than by contrasts ; a child does not understand 
evil, but it knows when the instinct of the good and the 
beautiful which nature has implanted in it is shocked. 
The lectures which Pierrette now drew upon herself on 
propriety of behavior, modesty, and econom}- were 
merely the corollary of the one theme, “Pierrette will 
ruin us.” 

These perpetual fault-findings, which were destined 
to have a fatal result for the poor child, brought the 
two celibates back to the old beaten track of their 
shop-keeping habits, from which their removal to Pro- 
vins had parted them, and in which their natures were 
now to expand and flourish. Accustomed in the old 
days to rule and to make inquisitions, to order about 
and reprove their clerks sharply, Rogron and his sister 
had actually suffered for want of victims. Little minds 
need to practise despotism to relieve their nerves, just 
as great souls thirst for equality in friendship to ex- 


Pierrette, 


89 


ercise their hearts. Narrow natures expand by perse- 
cuting as much as others through beneficence ; they 
prove their power over their fellows by cruel tyranny 
as others do by loving-kindness ; they simply go the 
way their temperaments drive them. Add to this the 
propulsion of self-interest and you may read the enigma 
of most social matters. 

Thenceforth Pierrette became a necessity to the 
lives of her cousins. From the day of her coming 
their minds were occupied, — first, with her outfit, and 
then with the novelty of a third presence. But every 
new thing, a sentiment and even a tyranny, is moulded 
as time goes on into fresh shapes. Sylvie began by 
calling Pierrette “my dear,” or “little one.” Then 
she abandoned the gentler terms for “ Pierrette” only. 
Her reprimands, at first only cross, became sharp and 
angry ; and no sooner were their feet on the path of 
fault-finding than the brother and sister made rapid 
strides. They were no longer bored to death ! It was 
not their deliberate intention to be wicked and cruel ; 
it was simply the blind instinct of an imbecile tyranny. 
The pair believed they were doing Pierrette a service, 
just as they had thought their harshness a benefit to 
their apprentices. 

Pierrette, whose true and noble and extreme sensi- 
bility was the antipodes of the Rogrons’ hardness, 
had a dread of being scolded; it wounded her sg 


90 


Pierrette, 


sharply that the tears would instantly start in hei 
beautiful, pure eyes. She had a great struggle with 
herself before she could repress the enchanting spright- 
liness which made her so great a favorite elsewhere. 
After a time she displayed it only in the homes of 
her little friends. By the end of the first month she 
had learned to be passive in her cousins’ house, — so 
much so that Rogron one day asked her if she was 
ill. At that sudden question, she ran to the end of 
the garden, and stood ciying beside the river, into 
which her tears may have fallen as she herself was 
about to fall into the social torrent. 

One day, in spite of all her care, she tore her 
best reps frock at Madame Tiphaine’s, where she was 
spending a happy day. The poor child burst into tears, 
foreseeing the cruel things which would be said to her at 
home. Questioned by her friends, she let fall a few 
words about her terrible cousin. Madame Tiphaine 
happened to have some reps exactly like that of the 
frock, and she put in a new breadth herself. Made- 
moiselle Rogron found out the trick, as she expressed 
it, which the little devil had played her. From that 
day forth she refused to let Pierrette go to any of 
“those women’s” houses. 

The life the poor girl led in Provins was divided 
into three distinct phases. The first, already shown, 
in which she had some joy mingled with the cold kind- 


Pierrette, 


91 


ness of her cousins and their sharp reproaches, lasted 
three months. Sylvie’s refusal to let her go to her 
little friends, backed by the necessity of beginning her 
education, ended the first phase of her life at Provins, 
the only period when that life was bearable to her. 

These events, produced at the Rogrons b}' Pierrette’s 
presence, were studied by Vinet and the colonel with 
the caution of foxes preparing to enter a poultry-yard 
and disturbed by seeing a strange fowl. They both 
called from time to time, — but seldom, so as not to 
alarm the old maid ; they talked with Rogron under 
various pretexts, and made themselves masters of his 
mind with an affectation of reserve and modesty which 
the great Tartufe himself would have respected. The 
colonel and the lawyer were spending the evening with 
Rogron on the very day when Sylvie had refused in 
bitter language to let Pierrette go again to Madame 
Tiphaine’s, or elsewhere. Being told of this refusal the 
colonel and the lawyer looked at each other with an 
air which seemed to say that the}" at least knew Provins 
well. 

“ Madame Tiphaine intended to insult you,” said the 
lawyer. “We have long been warning Rogron of 
what would happen. There ’s no good to be got from 
those people.” 

“ What can you expect from the anti-national 
party ! ” cried the colonel, twirling his moustache and 


92 


Pierrette, 


interrupting the lawyer. “But, mademoiselle, if we 
had tried to wean you from those people 3’ou might 
have supposed we had some malicious motive in what 
we said. If you like a game of cards in the evening, 
why don’t you have it at home ; why not play your bos- 
ton here, in your own house ? Is it impossible to fill the 
places of those idiots, the JuUiards and all the rest of 
them? Vinet and I know how to play boston, and we 
can easily find a fourth. Vinet might present his wife 
to 3'ou ; she is charming, and, what is more, a Charge- 
bcEuf. You will not be so exacting as those apes of the 
Upper town ; you won’t require a good little housewife, 
who is compelled by the meanness of her family to do 
her own work, to dress like a duchess. Poor woman, 
she has the courage of a lion and the meekness of 
a lamb.” 

Sylvie Rogron showed her long yellow teeth as she 
smiled on the colonel, who bore the sight heroicallj^ 
and assumed a flattered air. 

“If we are only four we can’t play boston every 
night,” said Sylvie. 

“ Why not? What do you suppose an old soldier of 
the Empire like me does with himself? And as for 
Vinet, his evenings are always free. Besides, you’ll 
have plenty of other visitors ; I warrant you that,” he 
added, with a rather m3'Sterious air. 

What you ought to do,” s^id Vinet, “ is to take aq 


Pierrette, 


open stand against the ministerials of Provins and 
form an opposition to them. You would soon see how 
popular that would make you ; you would have a 
society about you at once. The Tiphaines would be 
furious at an opposition salon. Well, well, why not 
laugh at others, if others laugh at you ? — and they do ; 
the clique does n’t mince matters in talking about 
you.” 

“ How *8 that? ” demanded Sylvie. 

In the provinces there is always a valve or a faucet 
through which gossip leaks from one social set to an- 
other. Vinet knew all the slurs cast upon the Rogrons 
in the salons from which they were now excluded. 
The deputy-judge and archaeologist Desfondrilles be- 
longed to neither party. With other independents like 
him, he repeated what he heard on both sides and 
Vinet made the most of it. The lawyer’s spiteful 
tongue put venom into Madame Tiphaine’s speeches, 
and by showing Rogron and S^dvie the ridicule they 
had brought upon themselves he roused an undying 
spirit of hatred in those bitter natures, which needed an 
object for their petty passions. 

A few days later Vinet brought his wife, a well-bred 
woman, neither pretty nor plain, timid, very gentle, 
and deeply conscious of her false position. Madame 
Vinet was fair-complexioned, faded by the cares of 
her poor household, and very simply dressed. No 


94 


Pierrette, 


woman could have pleased Sylvie more. Madame 
Vinet endured her airs, and bent before them like one 
accustomed to subjection. On the poor woman’s 
rounded brow and delicately timid cheek and in her 
slow and gentle glance, were the traces of deep reflec- 
tion, of those perceptive thoughts which women who 
are accustomed to sufier bury in total silence. 

The influence of the colonel (who now displayed to 
Sylvie the graces of a courtier, in marked contradiction 
to his usual military brusqueness) , together with that of 
the astute Vinet, was soon to harm the Breton child. 
Shut up in the house, no longer allowed to go out ex- 
cept in company with her old cousin, Pierrette, that 
pretty little squirrel, was at the mercy of the inces- 
sant cry, “ Don’t touch that, child, let that alone ! ” 
She was perpetually being lectured on her carriage 
and behavior ; if she stooped or rounded her shoulders, 
her cousin would call to her to be as erect as herself 
(Sylvie was rigid as a soldier presenting arms to his 
colonel) ; sometimes indeed the ill-natured old maid en- 
forced the order by slaps on the back to make the girl 
straighten up. 

Thus the free and joyous little child of the Marais 
learned by degrees to repress all liveliness and to make 
herself, as best she could, an automaton. 


Pierrette, 


95 


V. 


HISTORY OP POOR COUSINS IN THE HOME OF RICH 
ONES. 

One evening, which marked the beginning of Pier- 
rette’s second phase of life in her cousin’s house, the 
child, whom the three guests had not seen during the 
evening, came into the room to kiss her relatives and 
say good-night to the company. Sylvie turned her 
cheek coldly to the pretty creature, as if to avoid kiss- 
ing her. The motion was so cruelly significant that the 
tears sprang to Pierrette’s eyes. 

“Did you prick A^ourself, little girl?” said the 
atrocious Vinet. 

“What is the matter?” asked Sylvie, severely. 

“ Nothing,” said the poor child, going up to Rogron. 

“ Nothing?” said Sylvie, “ that’s nonsense ; nobody 
cries for nothing.” 

“What is it, my little darling?” said Madame 
Vinet, 

“ My rich cousin is n’t as kind to me as my poor 
grandmother was,” sobbed Pierrette. 

“ Your grandmother took your money,” said Sylvie, 
“ and your cousin will leave you hers.” 


96 


Pierrette, 


The colonel and the law3'er glanced at each other. 

“ I would rather be robbed and loved,” said 
Pierrette. 

“ Then 3"ou shall be sent back whence 3’ou came.’’ 

‘^But what has the dear little thing done?” asked 
Madame Vinet. 

Vinet gave his wife the terrible, fixed, cold look with 
which men enforce their absolute dominion. The 
hapless helot, punished incessantl}’ for not having the 
one thing that was wanted of her, a fortune, took up 
her cards. 

“What has she done?” said S3dvie, throwing up 
her head with such violence that the yellow wall- 
flowers in her cap nodded. “ She is alwa3’s looking 
about to anno3" us. She opened m3^ watch to see 
the inside, and meddled with the wheel and broke the 
mainspring. Mademoiselle pa3^s no heed to what is 
said to her. I am all da3" long telling her to take 
care of things, and I might just as well talk to that 
lamp.” 

Pierrette, ashamed at being reproved before strangers, 
crept softly out of the room. 

“ I am thinking all the time how to subdue that 
child,” said Rogron. 

“Isn’t she old enough to go to school?” asked 
Madame Vinet. 

Again she was silenced by a look from her husband, 


Pierrette, 


97 


who had been careful to tell her nothing of his own or 
the colonel’s schemes. 

“ This is what comes of taking charge of other 
people’s children ! ” cried the colonel. “ You may still 
have some of your own, you or your brother. Why 
don’t you both marry?” 

Sylvie smiled agreeably on the colonel. For the 
first time in her life she met a man to whom the idea 
that she could marry did not seem absurd. 

“ Madame Vinet is right,” cried Rogron ; “ perhaps 
teaching would keep Pierrette quiet. A master would n’t 
cost much.” 

The colonel’s remark so preoccupied Sylvie that she 
made no answer to her brother. 

“ If you are willing to be security for that opposition 
journal I was talking to you about,” said Vinet, “ you 
will find an excellent master for the little cousin in 
the managing editor; we intend to engage that poor 
schoolmaster who lost his employment through the 
encroachments of the clerg}^ My wife is right; 
Pierrette is a rough diamond that wants polishing.” 

“ I thought you were a baron,” said Sylvie to the 
colonel, while the cards were being dealt, and after a 
long pause in which they had all been rather thoughtful. 

“ Yes ; but when I was made baron, in 1814, after the 
battle of Nangis, where my regiment performed mira- 
cles, I had money and influence enough to secure the 

7 


98 


Pierrette. 


rank. But now my barony is like the grade of general 
which I held in 1815, — it needs a revolution to give 
it back to me.” 

If you will secure my endorsement by a mortgage,” 
said Rogron, answering Vinet after long consideration, 
“ I will give it.” 

“That can easily be arranged,” said Vinet. ^^The 
new paper will soon restore the colonel’s rights, and 
make 3 'Our salon more powerful in Provins than those 
of Tiphaine and compan 3 ^” 

“ How so? ” asked Sylvie. 

While his wife was dealing and Vinet himself ex- 
plaining the importance the}' would all gain by the 
publication of an independent newspaper, Pierrette 
was dissolved in tears ; her heart and her mind were 
one in this matter ; she felt and knew that her cousin 
was more to blame than she was. The little country girl 
instinctively understood that charity and benevolence 
ought to be a complete offering. She hated her hand- 
some frocks and all the things that were made for her ; 
she was forced to pay too dearly for such benefits. She 
wept with vexation at having given cause for complaint 
against her, and resolved to behave in future in such a 
way as to compel her cousins to find no further fault 
with her. The thought then came into her mind how 
grand Brigaut had been in giving her all his savings 
without a word. Poor child ! she fancied her troubles 


Pierrette, 


99 


were now at their worst ; she little knew that other 
misfortunes were even now being planned for her in 
the salon. 

A few days later Pierrette had a writing-master. She 
was taught to read, write, and cipher. Enormous injury 
was thus supposed to be done to the Rogrons’ house. 
Ink-spots were found on the tables, on the furniture, on 
Pierrette’s clothes ; copy-books and pens were left about ; 
sand was scattered everywhere, books were torn and 
dog’s-eared as the result of these lessons. She was told 
in harsh terms that she would have to earn her own 
living, and not be a burden to others. As she listened 
to these cruel remarks Pierrette’s throat contracted 
violently with acute pain, her heart throbbed. She was 
forced to restrain her tears, or she was scolded for 
weeping and told it was an insult to the kindness of 
her magnanimous cousins. Rogron had found the life 
that suited him. He scolded Pierrette as he used to 
scold his clerks ; he would call her when at play, and 
compel her to study ; he made her repeat her lessons, 
and became himself the almost savage master of the 
poor child. Sylvie, on her side, considered it a duty 
to teach Pierrette the little that she knew herself about 
women’s work. Neither Rogron nor his sister had the 
slightest softness in their natures. Their narrow minds, 
which found real pleasure in worrying the poor child, 
passed insensibly from outward kindness to extreme 


100 


Pierrette, 


severity. This severity was necessitated, they believed, 
by what they called the self-will of the child, which had 
not been broken when 3'oung and was very obstinate. 
Her masters were ignorant how to give to their instruc- 
tions a form suited to the intelligence of the pupil, — 
a thing, by the bye, which marks the difference between 
public and private education. The fault was far less 
with Pierrette than with her cousins. It took her an 
infinite length of time to learn the rudiments. She 
was called stupid and dull, clumsy and awkward for 
mere nothings. Incessantly abused in words, the child 
suffered still more from the harsh looks of her cousins. 
She acquired the doltish waj^s of a sheep ; she dared 
not do anything of her own impulse, for all she did 
was misinterpreted, misjudged, and ill-received. In all 
things she awaited silentlj" the good pleasure and the 
orders of her cousins, keeping her thoughts within her 
own mind and sheltering herself behind a passive obedi- 
ence. Her brilliant colors began to fade. Sometimes 
she complained of feeling ill. When her cousin asked, 
“Where?” the poor little thing, who had pains all 
over her, answered, “ Everywhere.” 

Nonsense ! who ever heard of any one suffering 
everywhere?” cried Sylvie. “ If you suffered every- 
where you ’d be dead.” 

“ People suffer in their chests,” said Rogron, who 
liked to hear himself harangue, or they have toothache, 


Pierrette, 


101 


headache, pains in their feet or stomach, but no one 
has pains everywhere. What do you mean by every- 
where ? I can tell you ; ‘ everywhere ’ means nowhere. 
Don’t you know what you are doing ? — you are com- 
plaining for complaining’s sake.” 

Pierrette ended by total silence, seeing how all her 
girlish remarks, the flowers of her dawning intelligence, 
were replied to with ignorant commonplaces which her 
natural good sense told her were ridiculous. 

You complain,” said Rogron, “ but you ’ve got the 
appetite of a monk.” 

The only person who did not bruise the delicate 
little flower was the fat servant- woman, Adele. Adele 
would go up and warm her bed, — doing it on the sly 
after a certain evening when Sylvie had scolded her 
for giving that comfort to the child. 

Children should be hardened, to give them strong 
constitutions. Am I and my brother the worse for 
it? ” said Sylvie. “ You ’ll make Pierrette e^peahling; ” 
this was a word in the Rogron vocabulary which meant 
a puny and suflTering little being. 

The naturally endearing ways of the angelic child 
were treated as dissimulation. The fresh, pure blossoms 
of affection which bloomed instinctively in that young 
soul were pitilessly crushed. Pierrette suflered many a 
cruel blow on the tender flesh of her heart. If she tried 
to soften those ferocious natures by innocent, coaxing 


102 


Pierrette, 


wiles they accused her of doing it with an object 
“Tell me at once what you want?” Rogron would 
say, brutally ; “ you are not coaxing me for nothing.’^ 

Neither brother nor sister believed in affection, and 
Pierrette’s whole being was affection. Colonel Gouraud, 
anxious to please Mademoiselle Rogron, approved of 
all she did about Pierrette. Vinet also encouraged 
them in what they said against her. He attributed all 
her so-called misdeeds to the obstinacy of the Breton 
character, and declared that no power, no will, could 
ever conquer it. Rogron and his sister were so 
shrewdly flattered by the two manoeuvrers that the 
former agreed to go security for the ‘‘ Courrier de 
Provins,” and the latter invested five thousand francs 
in the enterprise. 

On this, the colonel and lawyer took the field. They 
got a hundred shares, of five hundred francs each, taken 
among the farmers and others called independents, and 
also among those who had bought lands of the national 
domains, — whose fears they worked upon. They even 
extended their operations through the department and 
along its borders. Each shareholder of course sub- 
scribed to the paper. The judicial advertisements were 
divided between the “ Bee-hive,” and the Courrier.” 
The first issue of the latter contained a pompous eulogy 
on Rogron. He was presented to the community as the 
Laflatte of Provins. The public mind having thus 


Pierrette, 


103 


received an impetus in this new direction, it was 
manifest, of course, that the coming elections would be 
contested. Madame Tiphaine, whose highest hope was 
to take her husband to Paris as deputy, was in despair. 
After reading an article in the new paper aimed at her 
and at Julliard junior, she remarked: ‘^Unfortunately 
for me, I forgot that there is always a scoundrel close to 
a dupe, and that fools are magnets to clever men of the 
fox breed.” 

As soon as the “ Courrier” was fairly launched on 
a radius of fifty miles, Vinet bought a new coat and 
decent boots, waistcoats, and trousers. He set up the 
gray slouch hat sacred to liberals, and showed his 
linen. His wife took a servant, and appeared in public 
dressed as the wife of a prominent man should be ; her 
caps were pretty. Vinet proved grateful — out of 
policy. He and his friend Cournant, the liberal notary 
and the rival of the ministerial notary Auflray, became 
the close advisers of the Rogrons, to whom the}^ were 
able to do a couple of signal services. The leases 
granted by old Rogron their father in 1815, when 
matters were at a low ebb, were about to expire. 
Horticulture and vegetable gardening had developed 
enormously in the neighborhood of Provins. The 
lawyer and notary set to work to enable the Rogrons 
to increase their rentals. Vinet won two lawsuits 
against two districts on a question of planting trees, 


104 


Pierrette* 


which involved five hundred poplars. The proceeds of 
the poplars, added to the savings of the brother and 
sister, who for the last three years had laid by six 
thousand a year at high interest, was wisely invested in 
the purchase of improved lands. Vinet also undertook 
and carried out the ejectment of certain peasants to 
whom the elder Rogron had lent money on their farms, 
and who had strained every nerve to pay off the debt, 
but in vain. The cost of the Rogron s’ fine house was 
thus in a measure recouped. Their landed property, 
l3ing around Provins and chosen by their father with 
the sagacious eye of an innkeeper, was divided into 
small holdings, the largest of which did not exceed 
five acres, and rented to safe tenants, men who owned 
other parcels of land, that were ample security for their 
leases. These investments brought in, by 1826, five 
thousand francs a year. Taxes were charged to the 
tenants, and there were no buildings needing insurance 
or repairs. 

By the end of the second period of Pierrette’s stay in 
Provins life had become so hard for her, the cold in- 
diflTerence of all who came to the house, the silly fault- 
finding, and the total absence of affection on the part of 
her cousins grew so bitter, she was so conscious of a chill 
dampness like that of a grave creeping round her, that 
the bold idea of escaping, on foot and without money, 
to Brittany and to her grandparents took possession of 


Pierrette. 


105 


her mind. Two events hindered her from attempting it. 
Old Lorrain died, and Rogron was appointed guardian 
of his little cousin. If the grandmother had died first, 
we may believe that Rogron, advised b}' Vinet, would 
have claimed Pierrette’s eight thousand francs and 
reduced the old man to penury. 

“You may, perhaps, inherit from Pierrette,” said 
Vinet, with a horrid smile. “ Who knows who may live 
and who may die ? ” 

Enlightened by that remark, Rogron gave old Ma- 
dame Lorrain no peace until she had secured to Pierrette 
the reversion of the eight thousand francs at her death. 

Pierrette was deeply shocked by these events. She 
was on the point of making her first communion, — 
another reason for resigning the hope of escape from 
Provins. This ceremony, simple and customary as it 
was, led to great changes in the Rogron household. 
Sylvie learned that Monsieur le cure Peroux was in- 
structing the little Julliards, Lesourds, Garcelands, and 
the rest. She therefore made it a point of honor that 
Pierrette should be instructed by the vicar himself, 
Monsieur Habert, a priest who was thought to belong 
to the Congregation^ very zealous for the interests of 
the Church, and much feared in Provins, — a man who 
hid a vast ambition beneath the austerity of stern prin- 
ciples. The sister of this priest, an unmarried woman 
about thirty years of age, kept a school for young 


106 


Pierrette. 


ladies. Brother and sister looked alike ; both were 
thin, yellow, black-haired, and bilious. 

Like a true Breton girl, cradled in the practices and 
poetry of Catholicism, Pierrette opened her heart and 
ears to the words of this imposing priest. Sufferings 
predispose the mind to devotion, and nearly all 3 ^oung 
girls, impelled by instinctive tenderness, are inclined 
to mysticism, the deepest aspect of religion. The 
priest found good soil in which to sow the seed of the 
Gospel and the dogmas of the Church. He completely 
changed the current of the girl’s thoughts. Pierrette 
loved Jesus Christ in the light in which he is presented 
to young girls at the time of their first communion, as a 
celestial bridegroom ; her physical and moral suATerings 
gained a meaning for her ; she saw the finger of God 
in all things. Her soul, so cruelly hurt although she 
could not accuse her cousins of actual wrong, took refuge 
in that sphere to which all sufferers fiy on the wings 
of the cardinal virtues, — Faith, Hope, Charity. She 
abandoned her thoughts of escape. Sylvie, surprised 
by the transformation Monsieur Habert had efifected 
in Pierrette, was curious to know how it had been done. 
And it thus came about that the austere priest, while 
preparing Pierrette for her first communion, also won 
to God the hitherto erring soul of Mademoiselle Sylvie. 
Sylvie became pious. Jer6me Rogron, on whom the 
so-called Jesuit could get no grip (for just then the 


Pierrette, 


107 


Influence of His Majesty the late Constitutionnel the 
First was more powerful over weaklings than the influ- 
ence of the Church), Jerome Rogron remained faithful 
to Colonel Gouraud, Vinet, and Liberalism. 

Mademoiselle Rogron naturally made the acquaint- 
ance of Mademoiselle Habert, with whom she sympa- 
thized deeply. The two spinsters loved each other 
as sisters. Mademoiselle Habert offered to take Pier- 
rette into her school to spare Sylvie the annoyance of 
her education ; but the brother and sister both declared 
that Pierrette’s absence would make the house too 
lonely ; their attachment to their little cousin seemed 
excessive. 

When Gouraud and Vinet became aware of the ad- 
vent of Mademoiselle Habert on the scene they con- 
cluded that the ambitious priest her brother had the 
same matrimonial plan for his sister that the colonel 
was forming for himself and Sylvie. 

“Your sister wants to get you married,” said Vinet 
to Rogron. 

“ With whom? ” asked Rogron. 

“ With that old sorceress of a schoolmistress,” cried 
the colonel, twirling his moustache. 

“She hasn’t said anything to me about it,” said 
Rogron, naively. 

So thorough an old maid as S^dvie was certain to 
make good progress in the way of salvation. The 


108 


Pierrette, 


influence of the priest would as certainly increase^ 
and in the end aflfect Rogron, over whom Sylvie had 
great power. The two Liberals, who were naturally 
alarmed, saw plainly that if the priest were resolved 
to marry his sister to Rogron (a far more suitable 
marriage than that of Sylvie to the colonel) he could 
then drive S^dvie in extreme devotion to the Church, 
and put Pierrette in a convent. They might there- 
fore lose eighteen months’ labor in flattery and mean- 
nesses of all sorts. Their minds were suddenly filled 
with a bitter, silent hatred to the priest and his sis- 
ter, though they felt the necessity of living on good 
terms with them in order to track their manoeuvres. 
Monsieur and Mademoiselle Habert, who could play 
both whist and boston, now came every evening to 
the Rogrons. The assiduity of the one pair induced 
the assiduity of the other. The colonel and lawyer 
felt that they were pitted against adversaries who were 
fully as strong as they, — a presentiment that was shared 
by the priest and his sister. The situation soon be- 
came that of a battle-field. Precisely as the colonel 
was enabling Sylvie to taste the unhoped-for joys of 
being sought in marriage, so Mademoiselle Habert was 
enveloping the timid Rogron in the cotton-wool of her 
attentions, words, and glances. Neither side could 
utter that grand word of statesmanship, “ Let us di- 
vide 1 for each wanted the whole prey. 


Pierrette, 


109 


The two clever foxes of the Opposition made the 
mistake of pulling the first trigger. Vinet, under the 
spur of self-interest, bethought himself of his wife’s 
only friends, and looked up Mademoiselle de Charge- 
bceuf and her mother. The two women were living in 
poverty at Troyes on two thousand francs a year. 
Mademoiselle Bathilde de Chargeboeuf was one of 
those fine creatures who believe in marriage for love 
up to their twentj^-fifth year, and change their opinion 
when they find themselves still unmarried. Vinet man- 
aged to persuade Madame de Chargeboeuf to join her 
means to his and live with his family in Provins, where 
Bathilde, he assured her, could marry a fool named 
Rogron, and, clever as she was, take her place in the 
best society of the place. 

The arrival of Madame and Mademoiselle de Charge- 
boeuf in the lawyer’s household was a great reinforce- 
ment for the liberal party ; and it created consternation 
among the aristocrats of Provins and also in the 
Tiphaine clique. Madame de Breautey, horrified to 
see two women of rank so misled, begged them to 
come to her. She was shocked that the royalists of 
Troyes had so neglected the mother and daughter, 
whose situation she now learned for the first time. 

“ How is it that no old country gentleman has 
married that dear girl, who is cut out for a lady of 
the manor?” she said. “They have let her run to 


110 


Pierrette. 


seed, and now she is to be flung at the head of a 
Rogron ! ” 

She ransacked the whole department but did not 
succeed in finding any gentleman willing to marry 
a girl whose mother had only two thousand francs 
a 3*ear. The ‘ ‘ clique ” and the subprefect also looked 
about them with the same object, but they were all 
too late. Madame de Br4autey made terrible charges 
against the selfishness which degraded France, — the 
consequence, she said, of materialism, and of the 
importance now given b}^ the laws to money : nobility 
was no longer of value ! nor beauty either ! Such 
creatures as the Rogrons, the Vinets, could stand up 
and fight with the King of France ! 

Bathilde de Chargeboeuf had not only the incon- 
testable superiority of beauty over her rival, but that 
of dress as well. She was dazzlingly fair. At twenty- 
five her shoulders were full}' developed, and the curves 
of her beautiful figure were exquisite. The roundness 
of her throat, the purity of its lines, the wealth of her 
golden hair, the charming grace of her smile, the 
distinguished carriage of her head, the character of 
her features, the fine eyes finely placed beneath a 
well-formed brow, her every motion, noble and high- 
bred, and her light and graceful figure, — all were in 
harmony. Her hands were beautiful, and her feet 
slender. Health gave her, perhaps, too much the 


Pierrette. 


Ill 


look of a handsome barmaid. “ But that can’t be a 
defect in the eyes of a Rogron,” sighed Madame 
Tiphaine. Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf’s dress when 
she made her first appearance in Provins at the Ro- 
grons’ house was very simple. Her brown merino gown 
j edged with green embroidery was worn low-necked ; 
j but a tulle fichu, carefully drawn down by hidden 
I strings, covered her neck and shoulders, though it 
opened a little in front, where its folds were caught 
together with a sevigne. Beneath this delicate fabric 
Bathilde’s beauties seemed all the more enticing and 
coquettish. She took off her velvet bonnet and her 
shawl on arriving, and showed her pretty ears adorned 
with what were then called “ ear-drops ” in gold. She 
wore a little Jeannette — a black velvet ribbon with a 
heart attached — round her throat, where it shone like 
the jet ring which fantastic nature has fastened round 
the tail of a white angora cat. She knew all the little 
tricks of a girl who seeks to marry ; her fingers ar- 
ranged her curls which were not in the least out of 
order; she entreated Rogron to fasten a cuff-button, 
thus showing him her wrist, a request which that 
dazzled fool rudely refused, hiding his emotions under 
I the mask of indifference. The timidity of the only 
I love he was ever to feel in the whole course of his 

I life took an external appearance of dislike. Sylvie 

and her friend Celeste Habert were deceived by it; 


112 


Pierrette, 


not so Vinet, the wise head of this doltish circle, among 
whom no one really coped with him but the priest, — the 
colonel being for a long time his ally. 

On the other hand the colonel was behaving to Sylvie 
very much as Bathilde behaved to Rogron. He put on 
a clean shirt ever}" evening and wore velvet stocks, 
which set off his martial features and the spotless white 
of his collar. He adopted the fashion of white pique 
waistcoats, and caused to be made for him a new sur- 
tout of blue cloth, on which his red rosette glowed 
finely; all this under pretext of doing honor to the 
new guests Madame and Mademoiselle de Chargebceuf. 
He even refrained from smoking for two hours previous 
to his appearance in the Rogrons’ salon. His grizzled 
hair was brushed in a waving line across a cranium 
which was ochre in tone. He assumed the air and 
manner of a party leader, of a man who was pre- 
paring to drive out the enemies of France, the Bour- 
bons, in short, to beat of drum. 

The Satanic lawyer and the wily colonel played the 
priest and his sister a more cruel trick than even the 
importation of the beautiful Mademoiselle de Charge- 
boeuf, who was considered by all the Liberal party and 
by Madame de Br6autey and her aristocratic circle to 
be far handsomer than Madame Tiphaine. These two 
great statesmen of the little provincial town made 
everybody believe that the priest was in sympathy with 


Pierrette. 


113 


their ideas ; so that before long Provins began to talk 
of hina as a liberal ecclesiastic. As soon as this news 
reached the bishop Monsieur Habert was sent for and 
admonished to cease his visits to the Rogrons ; but his 
sister continued to go there. Thus the salon Rogron 
became a fixed fact and a constituted power. 

Before the year was out political intrigues were not 
less lively than the matrimonial schemes of the Rogron 
salon. While the selfish interests hidden in these 
hearts were struggling in deadly combat the events 
which resulted from them had a fatal celebrity. Every- 
body knows that the Villele ministry was overthrown 
by the elections of 1826. Vinet, the Liberal candidate 
at Provins, who had borrowed money of his notary to 
buy a domain which made him eligible for election, 
came very near defeating Monsieur Tiphaine, who^ 
saved his election by only two votes. The head- 
quarters of the Liberals was the Rogron salon ; among 
the habitues were the notary Cournant and his wife, 
and Doctor N4raud, whose youth was said to have 
been storm}", but who now took a serious view of 
life ; he gave himself up to study and was, according 
to all Liberals, a far more capable man than Monsieur 
Martener, the aristocratic physician. As for the 
Rogrons, they no more understood their present 
triumph than they had formerly understood their 
ostracism. 


114 


Pierrette. 


The beautiful Bathilde, to whom Vinet had explained 
Pierrette as an enemy, was extremely disdainful to the 
girl. It seemed as though everybody’s selfish schemes 
demanded the humiliation of that poor victim. Madame 
Vinet could do nothing for her, ground as she herself 
was beneath those implacable self-interests which the 
lawj’er’s wife had come at last to see and comprehend. 
Her husband’s imperious will had alone taken her to the 
Rogron’s house, where she had suffered much at the 
harsh treatment of the pretty little creature, who would 
often press up against her as if divining her secret 
thoughts, sometimes asking the poor lady to show her 
a stitch in knitting or to teach her a bit of embroidery. 
The child proved in return that if she were treated 
gently she would understand what was taught her, and 
succeed in what she tried to do quite marvellousl3\ 
But Madame Vinet was soon no longer necessary to her 
husband’s plans, and after the arrival of Madame and 
Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf she ceased to visit the 
Rogrons. 

Sylvie, who now indulged the idea of marrying, 
began to consider Pierrette as an obstacle. The girl 
was nearly fourteen ; the pallid whiteness of her skin, 
a symptom of illness entirely overlooked by the ignorant 
old maid, made her exquisitely lovely. Sylvie took it 
into her head to balance the cost which Pierrette had 
been to them by making a servant of her. All the 


Pierrette. 


115 


habitues of the house to whom she spoke of the matter 
advised that she should send away Adele. Why 
shouldn’t Pierrette take care of the house and cook? 
If there was too much work at any time Mademoiselle 
Rogron could easily employ the colonel’s woman-of-all- 
work, an excellent cook and a most respectable person. 
Pierrette ought to learn how to cook, and rub floors, 
and sweep, said the lawyer ; every girl should be taught 
to keep house properly and go to market and know the 
price of things. The poor little soul, whose self-devo- 
tion was equal to her generosity, offered herself 
willingly, pleased to think that she could earn the 
bitter bread which she ate in that house. Adele was 
sent away, and Pierrette thus lost the only person who 
might have protected her. 

In spite of the poor child’s strength of heart she was 
henceforth crushed down physically as w'ell as mentally. 
Her cousins had less consideration for her than for a 
servant ; she belonged to them ! She was scolded for 
mere nothings, for an atom of dust left on a glass globe 
or a marble mantelpiece. The handsome ornaments she 
had once admired now became odious to her. No 
matter how she strove to do right, her inexorable 
cousins always found something to reprove in whatever 
she did. In the course of two years Pierrette never 
received the slightest praise, or heard a kindly word. 
Happiness for her lay in not being scolded. She bore 


116 


Pierrette. 


with angelic patience the morose ill-humor of the two 
celibates, to whom all tender feelings were absolutely 
unknown, and who daily made her feel her dependence 
on them. 

Such a life for a young girl, pressed as it were be- 
tween the two chops of a vise, increased her illness. 
She began to feel violent internal distresses, secret 
pangs so sudden in their attacks that her strength was 
undermined and her natural development arrested. 
By slow degrees and through dreadful, though hidden 
sufferings, the poor child came to the state in which 
the companion of her childhood found her when he 
sang to her his Breton ditty at the dawn of the October 
day. 


Pierrette, 


117 


n. 


AN OLD maid's JEALOUSY. 

Before we relate the domestic drama which the 
coming of Jacques Brigaut was destined to bring about 
in the Rogron family it is best to explain how the lad 
came to be in Provins ; for he is, as it were, a some- 
what mute personage on the scene. 

When he ran from the house Brigaut was not only 
frightened by Pierrette’s gesture, he was horrified by 
the change he saw in his little friend. He could 
scarcely recognize the voice, the eyes, the gestures 
that were once so lively, ga}^ and withal so tender. 
When he had gained some distance from the house his 
legs began to tremble under him ; hot flushes ran down 
his back. He had seen the shadow of Pierrette, but not 
Pierrette herself! The lad climbed to the Upper town till 
he found a spot from which he could see the square and 
the house where Pierrette lived. He gazed at it mourn- 
fully, lost in many thoughts, as though he were enter- 
ing some grief of which he could not see the end. 
Pierrette was ill ; she was not happy ; she pined for 
Brittanj" — what was the matter with her ? All these 


118 


Pierrette. 


questions passed and repassed through his heart and 
rent it, revealing to his own soul the extent of his 
love for his little adopted sister. 

It is extremely rare to find a passion existing be- 
tween two children of opposite sexes. The charming 
stor}- of Paul and Virginia does not, any more than 
this of Pierrette and Brigaut, answer the question put 
by that strange moral fact. Modern historj^ oflfers only 
the illustrious instance of the Marchesa di Pescara and 
her husband. Destined to marrj’ by their parents from 
their earliest years, they adored each other and were 
married, and their union gave to the sixteenth century 
the noble spectacle of a perfect conjugal love without a 
flaw. When the marchesa became a widow at the age 
of thirty-four, beautiful, intellectually brilliant, univer- 
sally adored, she refused to marry sovereigns and 
buried herself in a convent, seeing and knowing thence- 
forth only nuns. Such was the perfect love that 
suddenly developed itself in the heart of the Breton 
workman. Pierrette and he had often protected each 
other ; with what bliss had he given her the money for 
her journey ; he had almost killed himself by running 
after the diligence when she left him. Pierrette had 
known nothing of all that ; but for him the recollection 
had warmed and comforted the cold, hard life he had 
led for the last three 3’ears. For Pierrette’s sake he 
had struggled to improve himself; he had learned his 


Pierrette. 


119 


trade for Pierrette ; he had come to Paris for Pierrette, 
intending to make his fortune for her. After spending 
a fortnight in the city, he had not been able to hold 
out against the desire to see her, and he had walked 
from Saturday night to Monday morning. He intended 
to return to Paris ; but the moving sight of his little 
friend nailed him to Provins. A wonderful magnetism 
(still denied in spite of many proofs) acted upon him 
without his knowledge. Tears rolled from his e3^es 
when they rose in hers. If to her he was Brittany 
and her happy childhood, to him she was life itself. 

At sixteen years of age Brigaut did not yet know 
how to draw or to model a cornice ; he was ignorant of 
much, but he had earned, by piece-work done in the 
leisure of his apprenticeship, some four or five francs a 
day. On this he could live in Provins and be near 
Pierrette ; he would choose the best cabinet-maker in 
the town, and learn the rest of his trade in working for 
him, and thus keep watch over his darling. 

Brigaut’s mind was made up as he sat there thinking. 
He went back to Paris and fetched his certificate, tools, 
and baggage, and three days later he was a journey- 
man in the establishment of Monsieur Frappier, the 
best cabinet-maker in Provins. Active, steady work- 
men, not given to junketing and taverns, are so rare 
that masters hold to 3"oung men like Brigaut when they 
find them. To end Brigaut’s history" on this point, we 


120 


Pierrette, 


will say here that the end of the month he was 
made foreman, and was fed and lodged by Frappier, 
who taught him arithmetic and line drawing. The 
house and shop were in the Grand’Rue, not a hundred 
feet from the little square where Pierrette lived. 

Brigaut buried his love in his heart and committed 
no imprudence. He made Madame Frappier tell him all 
she knew about the Rogrons. Among other things, 
she related to him the way in which their father had 
laid hands on the property of old Auffray, Pierrette’s 
grandfather. Brigaut obtained other information as to 
the character of the brother and sister. He met Pier- 
rette sometimes in the market with her cousin, and 
shuddered to see the heavy basket she was carrying on 
her arm. On Sundays he went to church to look at 
her, dressed in her best clothes. There, for the first 
time, he became aware that Pierrette was Mademoiselle 
Lorrain. Pierrette saw him and made him a hasty 
sign entreating him to keep out of sight. To him, 
there was a world of things in that little gesture, as 
there had been, a fortnight earlier, in the sign by 
which she told him from her window to run away. Ah ! 
what a fortune he must make in the coming ten years 
in order to marry his little friend, to whom, he was 
told, the Rogrons were to leave their house, a hundred 
acres of land, and twelve thousand francs a year, not 
counting their savings ! 


Pierrette. 


121 


The persevering Breton was determined to be thor- 
oughly educated for his trade, and he set about acquir- 
ing all the knowledge that he lacked. As long as only 
the principles of his work were concerned he could 
learn those in Provins as well as in Paris, and thus 
remain near Pierrette, to whom he now became anxious 
to explain his projects and the sort of protection she 
could rely on from him. He was determined to know 
the reason of her pallor, and of the debility which was 
beginning to appear in the organ which is always the 
last to show the signs of failing life, namely the eyes ; 
he would know, too, the cause of the sufferings which 
gave her that look as though death were near and she 
might drop at any moment beneath its sc3’the. The 
two signs, the two gestures — not denying their friend- 
ship but imploring caution — alarmed the young Breton. 
Evidently" Pierrette wished him to wait and not attempt 
to see her ; otherwise there was danger, there was peril 
for her. As she left the church she was able to give 
him one look, and Brigaut saw that her eyes were full 
of tears. But he could have sooner squared the circle 
than have guessed what had happened in the Rogrons^ 
house during the fortnight which had elapsed since his 
arrival. 

It was not without keen apprehensions that Pier- 
rette came downstairs on the morning after Brigaut 
had invaded her morning dreams like another dreana. 


122 


Pierrette. 


She was certain that her cousin Sylvie must have heard 
the song, or she would not have risen and opened her 
window ; but Pierrette was ignorant of the powerful 
reasons that made the old maid so alert. For the last 
eight days, strange secret events and bitter feelings agi- 
tated the minds of the chief personages who frequented 
the Rogron salon. These hidden matters, carefully con- 
cealed by all concerned, were destined to fall in their 
results like an avalanche on Pierrette. Such mysterious 
things, which we ought perhaps to call the putrescence 
of the human heart, lie at the base of the greatest revolu- 
tions, political, social or domestic ; but in telling of them 
it is desirable to explain that their subtle significance 
cannot be given in a matter-of-fact narrative. These 
secret schemes and calculations do not show themselves 
as brutally and undisguisedly while taking place as they 
must when the history of them is related. To set down 
in writing the circumlocutions, oratorical precautions, 
protracted conversations, by which minds intentionally 
darkened knowledge, and honeyed words glossed over 
the venom of intentions, would make as long a book as 
that magnificent poem called Clarissa Harlowe.” 

Mademoiselle Habert and Mademoiselle Sjdvie were 
equally desirous of marrying, but one was ten years 
older than the other, and the probabilities of life al- 
lowed Celeste Habert to expect that her children would 
inherit all the Rogron property. Sylvie was fortj^-two. 


Pierrette. 


123 


an age at which marriage is beset by perils. In confid- 
ing to eacli other their ideas, Celeste, instigated by her 
vindictive brother the priest, enlightened Sylvie as to 
the dangers she would incur. Sylvie trembled ; she 
was terribly afraid of death, an idea which shakes all 
celibates to their centre. But just at this time the 
Martignac ministr}" came into power, — a Liberal victory 
which overthrew the VillMe administration. The Vinet 
party now carried their heads high in Provins. Vinet 
himself became a personage. The Liberals prophesied 
his advancement; he would certainly be deputy and 
attorney-general. As for the colonel, he would be 
made mayor of Provins. Ah, to reign as Madame 
Garceland, the wife of the present mayor, now reigned ! 
S3dvie could not hold out against that hope ; she 
determined to consult a doctor, though the proceeding 
would only cover her with ridicule. To consult Mon- 
sieur N 4 raud, the Liberal ph3’sician and the rival of 
Monsieur Martener, would be a blunder. Celeste 
Habert oflTered to hide Sylvie in her dressing-room 
while she herself consulted Monsieur Martener, the 
physician of her establishment, on this difficult matter. 
Whether Martener was, or was not, Celeste’s accom- 
plice need not be discovered ; at any rate he told his 
client that even at thirty the danger, though slight, did 
exist. “ But,” he added, “ with your constitution, you 
need fear nothing.” 


124 


Pierrette. 


** But how about a woman over forty ? ” asked Made- 
moiselle Celeste. 

A married woman who has had children has noth- 
ing to fear.” 

“But I mean an unmarried woman, like Mademoi- 
selle Rogron, for instance?” 

“ Oh, that ’s another thing,” said Monsieur Martener. 
“ Successful childbirth is then one of those miracles 
which God sometimes allows himself, but rarely.” 

“ Why? ” asked Celeste. 

The doctor answered with a terrifying pathological 
description ; he explained that the elasticity given by 
nature to youthful muscles and bones did not exist at 
a later age, especially in women whose lives were 
sedentary. 

“ So 3’ou think that an unmarried woman ought not 
to marry after forty ? ” 

“Not unless she waits some years,” replied the 
doctor. “ But then, of course, it is not marriage, it is 
only an association of interests.” 

The result of the interview, clearly, seriously, scien- 
tifically and sensibly stated, was that an unmarried 
woman would make a great mistake in marrying after 
forty. When the doctor had departed Mademoiselle 
Celeste found Sylvie in a frightful state, green and 
yellow, and with the pupils of her eyes dilated. 

Then you really love the colonel? ” asked Celeste. 


Pierrette, 


125 


‘^I still hoped,” replied S3dvie. 

“ Well then, wait ! ” cried Mademoiselle Habert, jesu- 
iticall^’, aware that time would rid her of the colonel. 

Sylvie’s new devotion to the church warned her that 
the morality of such a marriage might be doubtful. 
She accordingly sounded her conscience in the confes- 
sional. The stern priest explained the opinions of the 
Church, which sees in marriage onl^’ the propagation of 
humanit}", and rebukes second marriages and all pas- 
sions but those with a social purpose. Sylvie’s per- 
plexities were great. These internal struggles gave 
extraordinary force to her passion, investing it with 
that inexplicable attraction which, from the days of 
Eve, the thing forbidden possesses for women. Made- 
moiselle Rogron’s perturbation did not escape the 
l^mx-eyed law3'er. 

One evening, after the game had ended, Vinet ap- 
proached his dear friend Sylvie, took her hand, and 
led her to a sofa. 

Something troubles 3"ou,” he said. 

She nodded sadly. The lawyer let the others de- 
part ; Rogron walked home with the Chargeboeufs, and 
when Vinet was alone with the old maid he wormed 
the truth out of her. 

“ Cleverly played, abb 4 ! ” thought he. “But you ’ve 
played into my hands.” 

The foxy lawyer was more decided in his opinioq 


126 


Pierrette. 


than even the doctor. He advised marriage in ten 
years. Inwardly he was vowing that the whole Rogron 
fortune should go to Bathilde. He rubbed his hands, 
his pinched lips closed more tightly as he hurried home. 
The influence exercised bj’ Monsieur Hubert, physician 
of the soul, and by Vinet, doctor of the purse, balanced 
each other perfectly. Rogron had no piety in him ; so 
the churchman and the man of law, the black-robed 
pair, were fairly matched. 

On discovering the victory obtained by Celeste, in 
her anxiety to marry Rogron herself, over Sylvie, torn 
between the fear of death and the joy of being baron- 
ness and ma3"oress, the lawyer saw his chance of driving 
the colonel from the battlefleld. He knew Rogron well 
enough to be certain he could marry him to Bathilde ; 
Jdr6me had already succumbed inwardly to her charms, 
and Vinet knew that the flrst time the pair were alone 
together the marriage would be settled. Rogron had 
reached the point of keeping his e^^es fixed on Celeste, 
so much did he fear to look at Bathilde. Vinet had now 
possessed himself of Sylvie’s secrets, and saw the force 
with which she loved the colonel. He fully understood 
the struggle of such a passion in the heart of an old 
maid who was also in the grasp of religious emotion, 
and he saw his waj’ to rid himself of Pierrette and the 
colonel both by making each the cause of the other’s 
overthrow. 


Pierrette. 


127 


The next day, after the court had risen, Vinet met 
the colonel and Rogron taking a walk together, accord- 
ing to their daily custom. 

Whenever the three men were seen in company the 
whole town talked of it. This triumvirate, held in 
horror by the sub-prefect, the magistrac}’, and the 
Tiphaine clique, was, on the other hand, a source of 
pride and vanity to the Liberals of Provins. Vinet 
was sole editor of the “ Courrier ” and the head of the 
party ; the colonel, the working manager, was its arm ; 
Rogron, by means of his purse, its nerves. The 
Tiphaines declared that the three men were always 
plotting evil to the government ; the Liberals admired 
them as the defenders of the people. When Rogron 
turned to go home, recalled by a sense of his dinner- 
hour, Vinet stopped the colonel from following him by 
taking Gouraud’s arm. 

“ Well, colonel,” he said, “I am going to take a fear 
ful load off your shoulders ; you can do better than 
marry Sylvie ; if you play your cards properly you can 
marry that little Pierrette in two j^ears’ time.” 

He thereupon related the Jesuit’s manoeuvre and its 
effect on Sylvie. 

“What a skulking trick!” cried the colonel; ^^and 
spreading over years, too ! ” 

“Colonel,” said Vinet, graveljs “Pierrette is a 
charming creature ; with her 3'OU can be happy for the 


128 


Pierrette, 


rest of j’our life ; 3'our health is so sound that the dif- 
ference in 3*our ages won’t seem disproportionate. 
But, all the same, 3’ou must n’t think it an eas3^ thing 
to change a dreadful fate to a pleasant one. To turn 
a woman who loves 3"Ou into a friend and confidant is 
as perilous a business as crossing a river under fire of 
the enem3\ Cavalr3" colonel as 3'ou are, and daring 
too, 3’ou must study the position and manoeuvre your 
forces with the same wisdom 3^ou have displa3"ed 
hitherto, and which has won us our present position. 
If I get to be attorne3^-general you shall command the 
department. Oh ! if 3’ou had been an elector we should 
be further advanced than we are now ; I should have 
bought the votes of those two clerks by threatening 
them with the loss of their places, and we should have 
had a majority.” 

The colonel had long been thinking about Pierrette, 
but he concealed his thoughts with the utmost dissimu- 
lation. His roughness to the child was onl3’ a mask ; 
but she could not understand why the man who claimed 
to be her father’s old comrade should usually treat her 
so ill, when sometimes, if he met her alone, he would 
chuck her under the chin and give her a friendly kiss. 
But after the conversation with Vinet relating to 
Sylvie’s fears of marriage Gouraud began to seek op- 
portunities to find Pierrette alone ; the rough colonel 
made himself as soft as a cat ; he told her how brave 


Pierrette. 


129 


her father was and what a misfortune it had been for 
her that she lost him. 

A few days before Brigaut’s arrival Sylvie had come 
suddenly upon Gouraud and Pierrette talking together. 
Instantly, jealousy rushed into her heart with monastic 
violence. Jealousy, eminently credulous and suspi- 
cious, is the passion in which fancy has most freedom, 
but for all that it does not give a person intelligence ; 
on the contrary, it hinders them from having any ; and 
in S3dvie’s case jealousy only filled her with fantastic 
ideas. When (a few mornings later) she heard Bri- 
gaut’s ditty, she jumped to the conclusion that the man 
who had used the words “ Madam* la mariee,** address- 
ing them to Pierrette, must be the colonel. She was 
certain she was right, for she had noticed for a week 
past a change in his manners. He was the only man 
who, in her solitary- life, had ever paid her any atten- 
tion. Consequently she watched him with all her eyes, 
all her mind ; and b}" giving herself up to hopes that 
were sometimes flourishing, sometimes blighted, she 
had brought the matter to such enormous proportions 
that she saw all things in a mental mirage. To use a 
common but excellent expression, b^r dint of looking 
intently she saw nothing. Alternately she repelled, 
admitted, and conquered the supposition of this rivalry. 
She compared herself with Pierrette ; she was forty-two 
years old, with gray hair ; Pierrette was delicately fair, 

9 


130 


Pierrette. 


with eyes soft enough to warm a withered heart. She had 
heard it said that men of fifty were apt to love young 
girls of just that kind. Before the colonel had come 
regularl}’^ to the house Sjlvie had heard in the Ti- 
phaines* salon strange stories of his life and morals. 
Old maids preserve in their love affairs the exaggerated 
Platonic sentiments which young girls of twenty are 
wont to profess ; they bold to these fixed doctrines 
like all who have little experience of life and no per- 
sonal knowledge of how great social forces modify, 
impair, and bring to nought such grand and noble 
ideas. The mere thought of being jilted by the colonel 
was torture to Sylvie’s brain. She lay in her bed going 
over and over her own desires, Pierrette’s conduct, and 
the song which had awakened her with the word “ mar- 
riage.” Like the fool she was, instead of looking 
through the blinds to see the lover, she opened her 
window without reflecting that Pierrette would hear her. 
If she had had the common instinct of a spy she would 
have seen Brigaut, and the fatal drama then begun 
would never have taken place. 

It was Pierrette’s duty, weak as she was, to take 
down the bars that closed the wooden shutters of the 
kitchen, which she opened and fastened back ; then she 
opened in like manner the glass door leading from the 
corridor to the garden. She took the various brooms 
that were used for sweeping the carpets, the dining- 


Pierrette, 


131 


room, the passages and stairs, together with the othei 
utensils, with a care and particularity which no servant, 
not even a Dutchwoman, gives to her work. She hated 
reproof. Happiness for her was in seeing the cold blue 
pallid eyes of her cousin, not satisfied (that they never 
were), but calm, after glancing about her with the look 
of an owner, — that wonderful glance which sees what 
escapes even the most vigilant eyes of others. Pier- 
rette’s skin was moist with her labor when she returned 
to the kitchen to put it in order, and light the stove 
that she might carry up hot water to her two cousins 
(a luxury she never had for herself) and the means of 
lighting fires in their rooms. After this she laid the 
table for breakfast and lit the stove in the dining- 
room. For all these various fires she had to fetch 
wood and kindling from the cellar, leaving the warm 
rooms for a damp and chilly atmosphere. Such sudden 
transitions, made with the quickness of youth, often to 
escape a harsh word or to obey an order, aggravated 
the condition of her health. She did not know she was 
ill, and yet she suffered. She began to have strange 
cravings ; she liked raw vegetables and salads, and ate 
them secretly. The innocent child was quite unaware 
that her condition was that of serious illness which 
needed the utmost care. If Neraud, the Rogrons’ 
doctor, had told this to Pierrette before Brigaut’s ar- 
rival she would only have smiled ; life was so bitter 


132 


Pierrette, 


she could smile at death. But now her feelings 
changed ; the child, to whose physical sufferings was 
added the anguish of Breton homesickness (a moral 
malady so well-known that colonels in the army allow 
for it among their men), was suddenly content to 
be in Provins. The sight of that yellow flower, the 
song, the presence of her friend, revived her as a 
plant long without water revives under rain. Uncon- 
sciously she wanted to live, and even thought she did 
not suffer. 

Pierrette slipped timidly into her cousin’s bedroom, 
made the fire, left the hot water, said a few words, and 
went to wake Rogron and do the same offices for him. 
Then she went down to take in the milk, the bread, 
and the other provisions left by the dealers. She stood 
some time on the sill of the door hoping that Brigaut 
would have the sense to come to her; but by that 
time he was already on his way to Paris. 

She had finished the arrangement of the dining-room 
and was busy in the kitchen when she heard her cousin 
Sylvie coming down. Mademoiselle Rogron appeared 
in a brown silk dressing gown and a cap with bows; 
her false front was awry, her night-gown showed above 
the silk wrapper, her slippers were down at heel. She 
gave an eye to everything and then came straight to 
Pierrette, who was awaiting her orders to know what 
to prepare for breakfast. 


Pierrette, 


133 


‘^Ha! here you are, lovesick young lady!” said 
Sylvie, in a mocking tone. 

“ What is it, cousin?” 

“ You came into my room like a sly cat, and you 
crept out the same way, though you knew very well 
I had something to say to you.” 

“ To me? ” 

“ You had a serenade this morning, as if you were 
a princess.” 

“ A serenade I ” exclaimed Pierrette. 

“A serenade!” said Sylvie, mimicking her; “and 
you ’ve a lover, too.” 

“ What is a lover, cousin?” 

Sylvie avoided answering, and said : — 

“ Do you dare to tell me, mademoiselle, that a man 
did not come under your window and talk to you of 
marriage ? ” 

Persecution had taught Pierrette the wariness of 
slaves ; so she answered bravely : — 

“ I don’t know what you mean, — ” 

“ Who means? — your dog? ” said Sylvie, sharply. 

“I should have said ‘cousin,’” replied the girl, 
humbly. 

“And didn’t you get up and go in your bare feet 
to the window ? — which will give you an illness ; and 
serve you right, too. And perhaps you did n’t talk to 
your lover, either ? ” 


134 


Pierrette, 


“ No, cousin.” 

“ I know you have many faults, but I did not think 
you told lies. You had better think this over, made- 
moiselle ; you will have to explain this affair to your 
cousin and to me, or your cousin will be obliged to 
take severe measures.” 

The old maid, exasperated by jealousy and curiosity, 
meant to frighten the girl. Pierrette, like all those who 
suffer more than they have strength to bear, kept 
silence. Silence is the only weapon by which such 
victims can conquer ; it baffles the Cossack charges of 
envy, the savage skirmishing of suspicion ; it does at 
times give victor}", crushing and complete, — for what 
is more complete than silence ? it is absolute ; it is one 
of the attributes of infinity. Sylvie watched Pierrette 
narrowly. The girl colored ; but the color, instead of 
rising evenly, came out in patches on her cheekbones, 
in burning and significant spots. A mother, seeing 
that symptom of illness, would have changed her tone 
at once ; she would have taken the child on her lap and 
questioned her ; in fact, she would long ago have ten- 
derly understood the signs of Pierrette’s pure and 
perfect innocence ; she would have seen her weakness 
and known that the disturbance of the digestive organs 
and the other functions of the body was about to 
affect the lungs. Those eloquent patches would have 
warned her of an imminent danger. But an old maid, 


Pierrette. 


135 


one in whom the family instincts have never been 
awakened, to whom the needs of childhood and the 
precautions required for adolescence were unknown, 
had neither the indulgence nor the compassionate in- 
telligence of a mother ; such sufferings as those of 
Pierrette, instead of softening her heart only made 
it more callous. 

“ She blushes, she is guilty ! ” thought Sylvie. 

Pierrette’s silence was thus interpreted to her injury. 

‘‘ Pierrette,” continued Sylvie, “ before your cousin 
comes down we must have some talk together. Come,” 
she said, in a rather softer tone, shut the street door ; 
if any one comes they will ring and we shall hear 
them.” 

In spite of the damp mist which was rising from 
the river, Sylvie took Pierrette along the winding 
gravel path which led across the lawn to the edge of 
the rock terrace, — a picturesque little quay, covered 
with iris and aquatic plants. She now changed her 
tactics, thinking she might catch Pierrette tripping 
by softness ; the hyena became a cat. 

“Pierrette,” she said, “3’ou are no longer a child; 
you are nearlj^ fifteen, and it is not at all surprising 
that you should have a lover.” 

“ But, cousin,’* said Pierrette, raising her e\"es with 
angelic sweetness to the cold, sour face of her cousin. 
“ What is a lover?” 


136 


Pierrette, 


It would have been impossible for Sylvie to define a 
lover with truth and decency to the girl’s mind. In- 
stead of seeing in that question the proof of adorable 
innocence, she considered it a piece of insincerity. 

“ A lover, Pierrette, is a man who loves us and 
wishes to marry us.” 

“Ah,” said Pierrette, “when that happens in Brit- 
tany we call the 3^oung man a suitor.” 

“ Well, remember that in owning 3'our feelings for a 
man you do no wrong, my dear. The wrong is in 
hiding them. Have you pleased some of the men 
who visit here?” 

“ I don’t think so, cousin.” 

“ Do you love any of them? ” 

“No.” 

“ Certain? ” 

“ Quite certain.” 

“ Look at me, Pierrette.” 

Pierrette looked at Sylvie. 

“ A man called to you this morning in the square.” 

Pierrette lowered her eyes. 

“ You went to your window, you opened it, and you 
spoke to him.” 

“No cousin, I went to look out and I saw a 
peasant.” 

“ Pierrette, 3'ou have much improved since you 
made your first communion ; you have become pious 


Pierrette, 


137 


and obedient, you love God and your relations ; I am sat- 
isfied with you. I don’t say this to puflT you up with pride.” 

The horrible creature had mistaken despondency, 
submission, the silence of wretchedness, for virtues ! 

The sweetest of all consolations to suffering souls, to 
martyrs, to artists, in the worst of that divine agony 
which hatred and envy force upon them, is to meet 
with praise where they have hitherto found censure and 
injustice. Pierrette raised her grateful eyes to her 
cousin, feeling that she could almost forgive her for the 
sufferings she had caused. 

“ But if it is all hypocrisy, if I find you a serpent 
that I have warmed in my bosom, you will be a wicked 
girl, an infamous creature ! ” 

“ X think I have nothing to reproach myself with,” 
said Pierrette, with a painful revulsion of her heart at 
the sudden change from unexpected praise to the tones 
of the hyena. 

“You know that to lie is a mortal sin? ” 

“ Yes, cousin.” 

“Well, you are now under the eye of God,” said the 
old maid, with a solemn gesture towards the sky ; “ swear 
to me that you did not know that peasant.” 

“ I will not swear,” said Pierrette. 

“ Ha ! he was no peasant, you little viper.” 

Pierrette rushed away like a frightened fawn terrified 
at her tone. Sylvie called her in a dreadful voice. 


138 


Pierrette, 


“ The bell is ringing,” she answered. 

“Artful wretch!” thought Sylvie. “She is de- 
praved in mind ; and now I am certain the little adder 
has wound herself round the colonel. She has heard 
us say he was a baron. To be a baroness ! little fool ! 
Ah ! I ’ll get rid of her, I ’ll apprentice her out, and 
soon too ! ” 

Sylvie was so lost in thought that she did not notice 
her brother coming down the path and bemoaning the 
injury the frost had done to his dahlias. 

“ Sylvie! what are you thinking about? I thought 
you were looking at the fish ; sometimes they jump out 
of the water.” 

“ No,” said Sylvie. 

“How did you sleep?” and he began to tell her 
about his own dreams. “Don’t you think my skin is 
getting tabid? — a word in the Rogron vocabulary. 

Ever since Rogron had been in love, — but let us not 
profane the word, — ever since he had desired to marry 
Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf, he was veiy uneasy about 
himself and his health. At this moment Pierrette came 
down the garden steps and called to them from a dis- 
tance that breakfast was ready. At sight of her cousin, 
Sylvie’s skin turned green and yellow, her bile was in 
commotion. She looked at the floor of the corridor 
and declared that Pierrette ought to rub it. 

“ I will rub it now if you wish,” said the little angel, 


Pierrette. 


139 


not aware of the injury such work may do to a young 
girl. 

The dining-room was irreproachably in order. Sylvie 
sat down and pretended all through breakfast to want 
this, that, and the other thing which she would never 
have thought of in a quieter moment, and which she 
now asked for only to make Pierrette rise again and 
again just as the child was beginning to eat her food. 
But such mere teasing was not enough ; she wanted a 
subject on which to find fault, and was angry with herself 
for not finding one. She scarcely answered her brother’s 
silly remarks, yet she looked at him only ; her eyes 
avoided Pierrette. Pierrette was deeply conscious of all 
this. She brought the milk mixed with cream for each 
cousin in a large silver goblet, after heating it carefully 
in the bain-marie. The brother and sister poured in the 
coffee made by Sylvie herself on the table. When Syl- 
vie had carefully prepared hers, she saw an atom of 
coffee-grounds floating on the surface. On this the 
storm broke forth. 

“ What is the matter? ” asked Rogron. 

“ The matter is that mademoiselle has put dust in my 
milk. Do you suppose I am going to drink coffee with 
ashes in it? Well, I am not surprised ; no one can do 
two things at once. She was n’t thinking of the milk ! 
a blackbird might have flown through the kitchen to- 
day and she wouldn’t have seen it! how should she 


140 


Pierrette, 


see the dust flying! and then it was coflfee, ha! 
that did n’t signify ! ” 

As she spoke she was laying on the side of her plate 
the coffee-grounds that had run through the filter. 

“ But, cousin, that is coffee,” said Pierrette. 

“ Oh ! then it is I who tell lies, is it? ” cried Sylvie, 
looking at Pierrette and blasting her with a fearful 
flash of anger from her eyes. 

Organizations which have not been exhausted by 
powerful emotions often have a vast amount of the 
vital fluid at their service. This phenomenon of the 
extreme clearness of the eye in moments of anger was 
the more marked in Mademoiselle Rogron because she 
had often exercised the power of her eyes in her shop 
by opening them to their full extent for the purpose of 
inspiring her dependents with salutary fear. 

“You had better dare to give me the lie!” con- 
tinued Sylvie ; “ you deserve to be sent from the table 
to go and eat by yourself in the kitchen.” 

“ What’s the matter with you two?” cried Rogron. 
“ you are as cross as bears this morning.” 

“ Mademoiselle knows what I have against her,” 
said Sylvie. “ I leave her to make up her mind before 
speaking to you ; for I mean to show her more kindness 
than she deserves.” 

Pierrette was looking out of the window to avoid her 
cousin’s eyes, which frightened her. 


Pierrette, 


141 


Look at her ! she pays no more attention to what I 
am saying than if I were that sugar-basin ! And yet 
mademoiselle has a sharp ear; she can hear and an- 
swer from the top of the house when some one talks 
to her from below. She is perversity itself, — perver- 
sity, I say ; and you need n’t expect any good of her ; 
do 3 "ou hear me, J4r6me ? ” 

“ What has she done wrong? ” asked Rogron. 

“At her age, too! to begin so young!” screamed 
the angry old maid. 

Pierrette rose to clear the table and give herself 
something to do, for she could hardly bear the scene 
any longer. Though such language was not new to 
her, she had never been able to get used to it. Her 
cousin’s rage seemed to accuse her of some crime. She 
imagined what her fury would be if she came to know 
about Brigaut. Perhaps her cousins would have him 
sent away, and she should lose him ! All the many 
thoughts, the deep and rapid thoughts of a slave came 
to her, and she resolved to keep absolute silence about 
a circumstance in which her conscience told her there 
was nothing wrong. But the cruel, bitter words she had 
been made to hear and the wounding suspicion so 
shocked her that as she reached the kitchen she was 
taken with a convulsion of the stomach and turned 
deadl}" sick. She dared not complain ; she was not 
sure that any one would help her When she returned 


142 


Pierrette. 


to the dining-room she was white as a sheet, and, 
sa3'ing she was not well, she started to go to bed, 
dragging herself up step by step b}" the baluster and 
thinking that she was going to die. “ Poor Brigaut ! ^ 
she thought. 

“ The girl is ill,” said Rogron. 

“She ill! That's OTi\y shamming replied Sylvie, 
in a loud voice that Pierrette might hear. “ She was 
well enough this morning, I can tell you.” 

This last blow struck Pierrette to the earth ; she 
went to bed weeping and praying to God to take her 
out of this world. 


Pierrette, 


143 


vn. 

DOMESTIC TYRANNY. 

For a month past Rogron had ceased to carry the 
“ Coustitutionnel ” to Gouraud; the colonel came ob- 
sequiously to fetch his paper, gossip a little, and take 
Rogron off to walk if the weather was fine. Sure of 
seeing the colonel and being able to question him, Syl- 
vie dressed herself as coquettishl}’ as she knew how. 
The old maid thought she was attractive in a green 
gown, a yellow shawl with a red border, and a white 
bonnet with straggling gray feathers. About the hour 
when the colonel usually came Sylvie stationed herself 
in the salon with her brother, whom she had com- 
pelled to stay in the house in his dressing-gown and 
slippers. 

“It is a fine day, colonel,” said Rogron, when 
Gouraud with his heavy step entered the room. But 
I ’m not dressed ; my sister wanted to go out, and I was 
going to keep the house. Wait for me; I’ll be ready 
soon.” 

So saying, Rogron left Sylvie alone with the colonel. 

“ Where were you going? you are dressed divinely,^ 


144 


Pierrette, 


said Gouraudj who noticed a certain solemnity on the 
pock-marked face of the old maid. 

“ I wanted ver3" much to go out, but mj’ little cousin 
is ill, and I cannot leave her.” 

“ What is the matter with her?’^ 

“ I don’t know ; she had to go to bed.” 

Gouraud’s caution, not to say his distrust, was con- 
stantly excited by the results of his alliance with Vinet. 
It certainly appeared that the lawj^er had got the lion’s 
share in their enterprise. Vinet controlled the paper, 
he reigned as sole master over it, he took the revenues ; 
whereas the colonel, the responsible editor, earned 
little. Vinet and Courn ant had done the Rogrons 
great services ; whereas Gouraud, a colonel on half- 
pay", could do nothing. Who was to be deputy^ ? Vinet. 
Who was the chief authority in the party? Vinet* 
Whom did the liberals all consult? Vinet. Moreover, 
the colonel knew fully as well as Vinet himself the 
extent and depth of the passion suddenly aroused in 
Rogron by the beautiful Bathilde de Chargeboeuf. 
This passion had now become intense, like all the last 
passions of men. Bathilde’s voice made him tremble. 
Absorbed in his desires Rogron hid them ; he dared 
not hope for such a marriage. To sound him, the 
colonel mentioned that he was thinking himself of ask- 
ing for Bathilde’s hand. Rogron turned pale at the 
thought of such a formidable rival, and had since then 
shown coldness and even hatred to Gouraud. 


Pierrette. 


145 


Thus Vinet reigned supreme in the Rogron household 
while he, the colonel, had no hold there except by the 
extremely hypothetical tie of his mendacious affection 
for Sylvie, which it was not yet clear that Sylvie recip- 
rocated. When the lawyer told him of the priest’s 
manoeuvre, and advised him to break with Sylvie and 
marry Pierrette, he certainly flattered Gouraud’s foible ; 
but after analj^zing the inner purpose of that advice and 
examining the ground all about him, the colonel thought 
he perceived in his ally the intention of separating him 
from Sylvie, and profiting by her fears to throw the 
whole Rogron property into the hands of Mademoiselle 
de Charge boeuf. 

Therefore, when the colonel was left alone with 
Sylvie his perspicacity possessed itself immediately of 
certain signs which betrayed her uneasiness. He saw 
at once that she was under arms and had made this 
plan for seeing him alone. As he already suspected 
Vinet of playing him some trick, he attributed the con- 
ference to the instigation of the lawyer, and was in- 
stantly on his guard, as he would have been in an 
enemy’s country, — with an eye all about him, an ear to 
the faintest sound, his mind on the qui vive, and his 
hand on a weapon. The colonel had the defect of 
never believing a single word said to him by a woman ; 
so that when the old maid brought Pierrette on the 
scene, and told him she had gone to bed before midday, 
10 


146 


Pierrette, 


he concluded that Sylvie had locked her up by way of 
punishment and out of jealousy. 

“ She is getting to be quite pretty, that little thing,’* 
he said with an easy air. 

“ She will be pretty,” replied Mademoiselle Rogron. 

“You ought to send her to Paris and put her in a 
shop,” continued the colonel. “ She would make her 
fortune. The milliners all want pretty girls.” 

“Is that really your advice?” asked Sylvie, in a 
troubled voice. 

“ Good ! ” thought the colonel, “ I was right. Vinet 
advised me to marry Pierrette just to spoil my chance 
with the old harridan. But,” he said aloud, “ what 
else can you do with her? There s that beautiful girl 
Balhilde de Chargeboeuf, noble and well-connected, 
reduced to single-blessedness, — nobody will have her. 
Pierrette has nothing, and she ’ll never marry. As for 
beauty, what is it? To me, for example, 3'Outh and 
beauty are nothing ; for have n’t I been a captain of 
cavalry in the imperial guard, and carried my spurs into 
all the capitals of Europe, and known all the handsomest 
women of these capitals ? Don’t talk to me ; I tell you 
youth and beaut}’ are devilishly common and silly. 
At forty-eight,” he went on, adding a few years to his 
age, to match Sylvie’s, “ after surviving the retreat 
from Moscow and going through that terrible campaign 
of France, a man is broken down ; I ’m nothing but an 


Pierrette. 


147 


old fellow now. A woman like you would pet me and 
care for me, and her money, joined to my poor pension, 
would give me ease in my old days ; of course I should 
prefer such a woman to a little minx who would worry 
the life out of me, and be thirty years old, with passions, 
when I should be sixty, with rheumatism. At my age, 
a man considers and calculates. To tell you the truth 
between ourselves, I should not wish to have children.** 
Sylvie*s face was an open book to the colonel during 
this tirade, and her next question proved to him Vinet’s 
perfidy. 

“ Then you don*t love Pierrette? ** she said. 

“ Heavens ! are 3"OU out of 3’our mind, my dear 
S^dvie?’* he cried. “Can those who have no teeth 
crack nuts ? Thank God I 've got some common- 
sense and know what I *m about-** 

Sylvie thus reassured resolved not to show her own 
hand, and thought herself very shrewd in putting her 
own ideas into her brother*s mouth. 

“ Jer6me,’* she said, “ thought of the match.” 

“ How could 3' our brother take up such an incongru- 
ous idea ? Why, it is only a few days ago that, in order 
to find out his secrets, I told him I loved Bathilde. 
He turned as white as your collar.** 

“My brother! does he love Bathilde?** asked 
Sylvie. 

“ Madly, — and yet Bathilde is only after his money.’* 


148 


Pierrette, 


(“ One for you, Vinet ! ” thought the colonel.) “ I can’t 
understand why he should have told 3’ou that about 
Pierrette. No, Sjdvie,” he said, taking her hand 
and pressing it in a certain wa}^, “since 3"Ou have 
opened this matter” (he drew nearer to her), “well” 
(he kissed her hand ; as a cavalr}' captain he had 
already" proved his courage), “let me tell j^ou that I 
desire no wife but you. Though such a marriage may 
look like one of convenience, I feel, on my side, a sin- 
cere affection for you.” 

“ But if I wish you to marry Pierrette? if I leave 
her my fortune — eh, colonel? ” 

“ But I don’t want to be miserable in my home, and 
in less than ten 3’ears see a popinjay like Julliard 
hovering round my wife and addressing verses to her 
in the newspapers. I ’m too much of a man to stand 
that. No, I will never make a marriage that is dispro- 
portionate in age.” 

“ Well, colonel, we will talk seriously of this another 
time,” said Sylvie, casting a glance upon him which 
she supposed to be full of love, though, in point of fact, 
it was a good deal like that of an ogress. Her cold, 
blue lips of a violet tinge drew back from the yellow 
teeth, and she thought she smiled. 

“I’m read}’,” said Rogron, coming in and carrying 
off the colonel, who bowed in a lover-like way to the 
old maid. 


Pierrette, 


149 


Gouraud determined to press on his marriage with 
Sylvie, and make himself master of the house ; resolving 
to rid himself, through his influence over Sylvie during 
the honeymoon, of Bathilde and Celeste Habert. So, 
during their walk, he told Kogron he had been joking 
the other day ; that he had no real intention of aspiring 
to Bathilde ; that he was not rich enough to marry a 
woman without a fortune ; and then he confided to him 
his real wishes, declaring that he had long chosen 
Sylvie for her good qualities, — in short, he aspired to 
the honor of being Rogron’s brother-in-law. 

“ Ah, colonel, my dear baron ! if nothing is wanting 
but my consent you have it with no further delay than 
the law requires,” cried Rogron, delighted to be rid of 
his formidable rival. 

Sylvie spent the morning in her own room consider- 
ing how the new household could be arranged. She 
determined to build a second storey for her brother and 
to furnish the first for herself and her husband ; but she 
also resolved, in the true old-maidish spirit, to subject 
the colonel to certain proofs by which to judge of his 
heart and his morals before she finally committed her- 
self. She was still suspicious, and wanted to make 
sure that Pierrette had no private intercourse with the 
colonel. 

Pierrette came down before the dinner-hour to lay 
the table. Sylvie had been forced to cook the dinner, 


150 


Pierrette. 


and had sworn at that “cursed Pierrette” for a spot 
she had made on her gown, — was n’t it plain that if 
Pierrette had done her own work Sjdvie would n’t have 
got that grease-spot on her silk dress ? 

“ Oh, here you peakling ! You are like the dog 
of the marshal who woke up as soon as the saucepans 
rattled. Ha! you want us to think you are ill, you 
little liar ! ” 

That idea: “You did not tell the truth about what 
happened in the square this morning, therefore you lie 
in everything,” was a hammer with which Sylvie bat- 
tered the head and also the heart of the poor girl 
incessantly. 

To Pierrette’s great astonishment Sylvie sent her to 
dress in her best clothes after dinner. The liveliest 
imagination is never up to the level of the activity 
which suspicion excites in the mind of an old maid. 
In this particular case, this particular old maid carried 
the day against politicians, lawyers, notaries, and all 
other self-interests. Sylvie determined to consult Vinet, 
after examining herself into all the suspicious circum- 
stances. She kept Pierrette close to her, so as to find 
out from the girl’s face whether the colonel had told 
her the truth. 

On this particular evening the Chargeboeuf ladies 
were the first to arrive. Bathilde, by Vinet’s advice, 
had become more elaborate in her dress. She now 


Pierrette, 


151 


wore a charming gown of blue velveteen, with the 
same transparent fichu, garnet pendants in her ears, 
her hair in ringlets, the WiXy Jeannette round her throat, 
black satin slippers, gray silk stockings, and gants de 
SuMe ; add to these things the manners of a queen 
and the coquetry of a young girl determined to cap- 
ture Rogron. Her mother, calm and dignified, re- 
tained, as did her daughter, a certain aristocratic 
insolence, with which the two women hedged themselves 
and preserved the spirit of their caste. Bathilde was a 
woman of intelligence, a fact which Vinet alone had 
discovered during the two months’ stay the ladies had 
made at his house. When he had fully fathomed the 
mind of the girl, wounded and disappointed as it was 
by the fruitlessness of her beauty and her 3'outh, and 
enlightened b}^ the contempt she felt for the men of a 
period in which money was the onl}^ idol, Vinet, him- 
self surprised, exclaimed, — 

“ If I could only have married 3’ou, Bathilde, I 
should to-day be Keeper of the Seals. I should call 
myself Vinet de Chargebceuf, and take my seat as 
deputy of the Right.” 

Bathilde had no vulgar idea in her marriage inten- 
tions. She did not marry to be a mother, nor to pos- 
sess a husband ; she married for freedom, to gain a 
responsible position, to be called madame,’’ and to 
act as men act. Rogron was nothing but a name to 


152 


Pierrette, 


her ; she expected to make something of the fool, — a 
voting deputy, for instance, whose instigator she would 
be ; moreover she longed to avenge herself on her 
family, who had taken no notice of a girl without 
money. Vinet had much enlarged and strengthened 
her ideas by admiring and approving them. 

My dear Bathilde,” he said, while explaining to 
her the influence of women, and showing her the sphere 
of action in which she ought to work, do you sup- 
pose that Tiphaine, a man of the most ordinary ca- 
pacit}’, could ever get to be a judge of the Roj- al court 
in Paris by himself ? No, it is Madame Tiphaine who 
has got him elected deputy, and it is she who will push 
him when they get to Paris. Her mother, Madame 
Roguin, is a shrewd woman, who does what she likes 
with the famous banker du Tillet, a crony of Nucin- 
gen, and both of them allies of the Kellers. The 
administration is on the best of terms with those 
lynxes of the bank. There is no reason why Tiphaine 
should not be judge, through his wife, of a Royal 
court. Marry Rogron ; we ’ll have him elected deputy 
from Provins as soon as I gain another precinct in the 
Seine-et-Marne. You can then get him a place as 
receiver-general, where he’ll have nothing to do but 
sign his name. We shall belong to the opposition if 
the Liberals triumph, but if the Bourbons remain — 
ah ! then we shall lean gently, gently towards the 


Pierrette. 


153 


centre. Besides, you must remember Rogron can’t 
live forever, and then you can marr}^ a titled man. 
In short, put yourself in a good position, and the 
Chargeboeufs will be ready enough to serve us. Your 
poverty has no doubt taught you, as mine did me, to 
know what men are worth. We must make use of 
them as we do of post-horses. A man, or a woman, 
will take us along to such or such a distance.” 

Vinet ended by making Bathilde a small edition of 
Catherine de Medicis. He left his wife at home, re- 
joiced to be alone with her two children, while he 
went every night to the Rogrons’ with Madame and 
Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf. He arrived there in all 
the glory of better circumstances. His spectacles were 
of gold, his waistcoat silk ; a white cravat, black 
trousers, thin boots, a black coat made in Paris, and 
a gold watch and chain, made up his apparel. In 
place of the former Vinet, pale and thin, snarling and 
gloomy, the present Vinet bore himself with the air 
and manner of a man of importance ; he marched 
boldly forward, certain of success, with that peculiar 
show of security which belongs to lawyers who know 
the hidden places of the law. His sly little head was 
well-brushed, his chin well shaved, which gave him a 
mincing though frigid look, that made him seem agree- 
able in the style of Robespierre. Certainly he would 
make a fine attorney-general, endowed with elastic, 


154 


Pierrette, 


mischievous, and even murderous eloquence, or an orator 
of the shrewd t3’pe of Benjamin Constant. The bitter- 
ness and the hatred which formerly actuated him had 
now turned into soft-spoken perfidy; the poison was 
transformed into anodyne. 

‘ ‘ Good-evening, my dear ; how are you ? ” said Ma- 
dame de Chargeboeuf, greeting S\dvie. 

Bathilde went straight to the fireplace, took off her 
bonnet, looked at herself in the glass, and placed her 
pretty foot on the fender that Bogron might admire it. 

“What is the matter with j'ou?” she said to him, 
looking directly in his face. “You have not bowed 
to me. Pra}^ wh3’ should we put on our best velvet 
gowns to please 3’ou?” 

She pushed past Pierrette to lay down her hat, 
which the latter took from her hand, and which she let 
her take exactly as though she were a servant. Men 
are supposed to be ferocious, and tigers too ; but 
neither tigers, vipers, diplomatists, law3’ers, execu- 
tioners or kings ever approach, in their greatest atroci- 
ties, the gentle cruelt3", the poisoned sweetness, the 
savage disdain of one 3’oung woman for another, when 
she thinks herself superior in birth, or fortune, or 
grace, and some question of marriage, or precedence, 
or an3' of the feminine rivalries, is raised. The ‘ ‘ Thank 
you, mademoiselle,” which Bathilde said to Pierrette 
was a poem in many strophes. She was named Ba- 


Pierrette, 


155 


tbilde, and the other Pierrette. She was a Chargeboeuf, 
the other a Lorrain. Pierrette was small and weak, 
Bathilde was tall and full of life. Pierrette was living 
on charity, Bathilde and her mother lived on their 
means. Pierrette wore a stuff gown with a chemisette, 
Bathilde made the velvet of hers undulate. Bathilde 
had the finest shoulders in the department, and the 
arm of a queen ; Pierrette’s shoulder-blades were skin 
and bone. Pierrette was Cinderella, Bathilde was the 
fairy. Bathilde was about to marry, Pierrette was to 
die a maid. Bathilde was. adored, Pierrette was loved 
by none. Bathilde’s hair was ravishingl}^ dressed, she 
had so much taste ; Pierrette’s was hidden beneath her 
Breton cap, and she knew nothing of the fashions. 
Moral, Bathilde was everything, Pierrette nothing. 
The proud little Breton girl understood this tragic 
poem. 

“ Good-evening, little girl,” said Madame de Charge- 
boeuf, from the height of her condescending grandeur, 
and in the tone of voice which her pinched nose gave 
her. 

Vinet put the last touch to this sort of insult by look- 
ing fixedly at Pierrette and saying, in three keys, 
“Oh! oh! oh! how fine we are to-night, Pierrette!” 

“ Fine ! ” said the poor child ; “ j’ou should say that 
to Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf, not to me.” 

“ Oh ! she is always beautifully dressed,” replied the 


156 


Pierrette, 


lawyer. “Isn’t she, Rogron?” he added, turning to 
the master of the house, and grasping his hand. 

“Yes,” said Rogron. 

“Why do you force him to say what he does not 
think?” said Bathilde ; “nothing about me pleases 
him. Is n’t that true ? ” she added, going up to Ro- 
gron and standing before him. “ Look at me, and say 
if it is n’t true. ” 

Rogron looked at her from head to foot, and gently 
closed his eyes like a cat whose head is being scratched. 

“ You are too beautiful,” he said; “ too dangerous.” 

“Why?” 

Rogron looked at the fire and was silent. Just then 
Mademoiselle Habert entered the room, followed by 
the colonel. 

Celeste Habert, who had now become the common 
enemy, could only reckon Sylvie on her side; never- 
theless, everybody present showed her the more civilitj’^ 
and amiable attention because each was undermining 
her. Her brother, though no longer able to be on the 
scene of action, was well aware of what was going on, 
and as soon as he perceived that his sister’s hopes were 
killed he became an implacable and terrible antagonist 
to the Rogrons. 

Every one will immediately picture to themselves 
Mademoiselle Habert when they know that if she had 
jiot kept an institution for young ladies sho would 


Pierrette, 


157 


still have had the air of a school-mistress. School- 
mistresses have a way of their own in putting on their 
caps. Just as old Englishwomen have acquired a 
monopoly in turbans, schoolmistresses have a monopoly 
of these caps. Flowers nod above the frame-work, 
flowers that are more than artificial ; lying by in 
closets for years the cap is both new and old, even 
on the day it is first worn. These spinsters make it a 
point of honor to resemble the lay figures of a painter ; 
they sit on their hips, never on their chairs. When 
any one speaks to them they turn their whole busts 
instead of simply turning their heads ; and when their 
gowns creak one is tempted to believe that the mech- 
anism of these beings is out of order. Mademoiselle 
Habert, an ideal of her species, had a stern eye, a 
grim mouth, and beneath her wrinkled chin the strings 
of her cap, always limp and faded, floated as she moved. 
Two moles, rather large and brown, adorned that chin, 
and from them sprouted hairs which she allowed to 
grow rampant like clematis. And finally, to complete 
her portrait, she took snuff*, and took it ungracefully. 

The company went to work at their boston. Made- 
moiselle Habert sat opposite to Sylvie, with the colonel 
at her side opposite to Madame de Chargeboeuf. 
Bathilde was near her mother and Rogron. Sylvie 
placed Pierrette between herself and the colonel ; 
Rogron had set out a second card-table, in case othet 


158 


Pierrette, 


company arrived. Two lamps were on the chimney-^ 
piece between the candelabra and the clock, and tho 
tables were lighted by candles at fort}^ sous a pound, 
paid for by the price of the cards. 

“ Come, Pierrette, take your work, my dear,” said 
Sylvie, with treacherous softness, noticing that the girl 
was watching the colonel’s game. 

She usually affected to treat Pierrette well before 
company. This deception irritated the honest Bre- 
ton girl, and made her despise her cousin. She 
took her embroider}", but as she drew her stitches she 
still watched Gouraud’s play. Gouraud behaved as 
if he did not know the girl was near him. Sylvie 
noticed this apparent indifference and thought it ex- 
tremel}^ suspicious. Presently she undertook a grande 
miser e in hearts, the pool being full of counters, 
besides containing twent3"-seven sous. The rest of the 
company had now arrived ; among them the deputy- 
judge Desfondrilles, who for the last two months had 
abandoned the Tiphaine party and connected himself 
more or less with the Vinets. He was standing before 
the chimne3"-piece, with his back to the fire and the 
tails of his coat over his arms, looking round the fine 
salon of which Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf was the 
shining ornament ; for it really seemed as if all the 
reds of its decoration had been made expressly to 
enhance her style of beauty. Silence reigned ; Pierrette 


Pierrette, 


159 


was watching the game, S3’lvie’s attention was dis- 
tracted from her by the interest of the grande misere. 

“Play that,” said Pierrette to the colonel, pointing 
to a heart in his hand. 

The colonel began a sequence in hearts ; the hearts 
all lay between himself and Sylvie ; the colonel won 
her ace, though it was protected by five small hearts. 

“ That ’s not fair ! ” she cried. “ Pierrette saw my 
hand, and the colonel took her advice.” 

“But, mademoiselle,” said Celeste, “it was the 
colonel’s game to pla}" hearts after you began them.” 

The scene made Monsieur Desfondrilles smile ; his 
was a keen mind, which found much amusement in 
watching the play of all the self-interests in Provins. 

“ Yes, it was certainly the colonel’s game,” said 
Cournant the notary, not knowing what the question 
was. 

Sylvie threw a look at Mademoiselle Habert, — one 
of those glances that pass from old maid to old maid, 
feline and cruel. 

“ Pierrette, you did see my hand,” said Sylvie fixing 
her eyes on the girl. 

“ No, cousin.” 

“ I was looking at you all,” said the deputy-judge, 
“ and I can swear that Pierrette saw no one’s hand but 
the colonel’s.” 

“ Pooh ! ” saidGouraud, alarmed, “ little girls know 
how to slide their eyes into everything.” 


160 


Pierrette. 


“ Ah ! ” exclaimed Sylvie. 

“Yes,” continued Gouraud. “I dare say she 
looked into your hand to play you a tiick. Did n’t 
you, little one ? ” 

“No,” said the truthful Breton, “I wouldn’t do 
such a thing; if I had, it would have been in my 
cousin’s interests.” 

“You know 3’ou are a story-teller and a little fool,” 
cried Sjdvie. “ After what happened this morning do 
you suppose I can believe a word jou say? You are 
a — ” 

Pierrette did not wait for Sylvie to finish her sen- 
tence ; foreseeing a torrent of insults, she rushed awaj^ 
without a light and ran to her room. Sylvie turned 
white with anger and muttered between her teeth, 
“She shall paj" for this!” 

“Shall j^ou pay for the mis^reP* said Madame de 
Chargeboeuf. 

As she spoke Pierrette struck her head against the 
door of the passage which some one had left open. 

“ Good ! I’m glad of it,” cried Sylvie, as they heard 
the blow. 

“ She must be hurt,” said Desfondrilles. 

“ She deserves it,” replied S^dvie. 

“It was a bad blow,” said Mademoiselle Habert. 

Sylvie thought she might escape paying her misere if 
she went to see after Pierrette ; but Madame de Charge- 
boeuf stopped her. 


Pierrette, 161 

“ Pay us first,” she said, laughing; “you will forget 
it when you come back.” 

The remark, based on the old maid’s trickery and 
her bad faith in paying her debts at cards was approved 
by the others. Sylvie sat down and thought no more 
of Pierrette, — an indifference which surprised no one. 
When the game was over, about half past nine o’clock, 
she flung herself into an easy chair at the corner of the 
fireplace and did not even rise as her guests departed. 
The colonel was torturing her ; she did not know what 
to think of him. 

“ Men are so false ! ” she cried, as she went to bed. 

Pierrette had given herself a frightful blow on the 
head, just above the ear, at the spot where young girls 
part their hair when they put their “front hair” in 
curlpapers. The next day there was a large swelling. 

“ God has punished you,” said Sylvie at the break- 
fast table. “You disobeyed me ; you treated me with 
disrespect in leaving the room before I had finished my 
sentence ; you got what you deserved.” 

“ Nevertheless,” said Rogron, “ she ought to put on 
a compress of salt and water.” 

“ Oh, it is nothing at all, cousin.,” said Pierrette. 

The poor child had reached a point when even such 
a remark seemed to her a proof of kindness. 


11 


162 


Pierrette, 


VIII. 

THE LOVES OF JACQUES AND PIERRETTE. 

The week ended as it had begun, in continual tor- 
ture. Sylvie grew ingenious, and found refinements of 
tyranny with almost savage cruelty ; the red Indians 
might have taken a lesson from her. Pierrette dared 
not complain of her vague sufferings, nor of the actual 
pains she now felt in her head. The origin of hei 
cousin’s present anger was the non-revelation of Bri- 
gaut’s arrival. With Breton obstinacy Pierrette was de- 
termined to keep silence, — a resolution that is perfectly 
explicable. It is easy to see how her thoughts turned 
to Brigaut, fearing some danger for him if he were dis- 
covered, yet instinctively longing to have him near her, 
and happy in knowing he was in Provins. What joy 
to have seen him ! That single glimpse was like the 
look an exile casts upon his country, or the martjT lifts 
to heaven, where his eyes, gifted with second-sight, 
can enter while fiames consume his body. 

Pierrette’s glance had been so thorougbl}' understood 
by the major’s son that, as he planed his planks or 
opened his compass or took his measures or joined his 


Pierrette, 


163 


wood, he was working his brains to find out some way 
of communicating with her. He ended by choosing the 
simplest of all schemes. At a certain hour of the 
night Pierrette must lower a letter by a string from her 
window. In the midst of the girl’s own sufferings, she 
too was sustained by the hope of being able to commu- 
nicate with Brigaut. The same desire was in both 
hearts ; parted, they understood each other ! At every 
shock to her heart, every throb of pain in her head, 
Pierrette said to herself, “ Brigaut is here ! ” and that 
thought enabled her to live without complaint. 

One morning in the market, Brigaut, lying in wait, 
was able to get near her. Though he saw her tremble 
and turn pale, like an autumn leaf about to flutter 
down, he did not lose his head, but quietly bought 
fruit of the market-woman with whom S3dvie was bar- 
gaining. He found his chance of slipping a note to 
Pierrette, all the while joking the woman with the 
ease of a man accustomed to such manoeuvres ; so cool 
was he in action, though the blood hummed in his 
ears and rushed boiling through his veins and arteries. 
He had the firmness of a galle^'-slave without, and 
the shrinkings of innocence within him, — like certain 
mothers in their moments of mortal trial, when held 
between two dangers, two catastrophes. 

Pierrette’s inward commotion was like Brigaut’s. She 
slipped the note into the pocket of her apron. The 


164 


Pierrette, 


hectic spots upon her cheekbones turned to a cherry- 
scarlet. These two children went through, all unknown 
to themselves, many more emotions than go to the 
make-up of a dozen ordinarj" loves. This moment in 
the market-place left in their souls a well-spring of 
passionate feeling. Sylvie, who did not recognize the 
Breton accent, took no notice of Brigaut, and Pierrette 
went home safely with her treasure. 

The letters of these two poor children were fated to 
serve as documents in a terrible judicial inquiry ; 
otherwise, without the fatal circumstances that occa- 
sioned that inquiry, the}^ would never have been heard 
of. Here is the one which Pierrette read that night in 
her chamber : — 

My dear Pierrette, — At midnight, when every- 
body is asleep but me, who am watching you, I will 
come every night under your window. Let down a 
string long enough to reach me ; it will not make any 
noise ; you must fasten to the end of it whatever you 
write to me. I will tie my letter in the same way. I 
hear they have taught you to read and write, — those 
wicked relations who were to do you good, and have 
done you so much harm. You, Pierrette, the daughter 
of a colonel who died for France, reduced by those 
monsters to be their servant! That is where all 
your pretty color and 3'our health have gone. My 


Pierrette, 


165 


Pierrette, what has become of her? what have they 
done with her. I see plainly you are not the same, 
not happy. Oh ! Pierrette, let us go back to Brittany. 
I can earn enough now to give you what you need ; for 
you yourself can earn three francs a day and I can 
earn four or five ; and thirty sous is all I want to live 
on. Ah ! Pierrette, how I have prayed the good God 
for you ever since I came here ! I have asked him to 
give me all your sufierings, and you all pleasures. 
Why do you stay with them ? why do they keep you ? 
Your grandmother is more to you than they. They are 
vipers ; they have taken your gaj^ety away from you. 
You do not even walk as you once did in Brittany. 
Let us go back. I am here to serve you, to do your 
will ; tell me what you wish. If you need money I 
have a hundred and fifty francs ; I can send them up 
by the string, though I would like to kiss your dear 
hands and lay the money in them. Ah, dear Pierrette, 
it is a long time now that the blue sky has been over- 
cast for me. I have not had two hours’ happiness since 
I put you into that diligence of evil. And when I saw 
3^ou the other morning, looking like a shadow, I could 
not reach 3’ou ; that hag of a cousin came between us. 
But at least we can have the consolation of praying to 
God together every Sunday in church ; perhaps he will 
hear us all the more when we pray together. 

Not good'b^’, mjr dear, Pierrette, but to-night** 


166 


Pierrette, 


This letter so affected Pierrette that she sat for more 
than an hour reading and re-reading and gazing at it. 
Then she remembered with anguish that she had noth- 
ing to write with. She summoned courage to make 
the difficult journey from her garret to the dining-room, 
where she obtained pen, paper, and ink, and returned 
safely without waking her terrible cousin. A few 
minutes before midnight she had finished the following 
letter : — 

Mr Friend, — Oh ! yes, my friend ; for there is no 
one but you, Jacques, and my grandmother to love 
me. God forgive me, but you are the only two persons 
whom I love, both alike, neither more nor less. I was 
too little to know my dear mamma ; but you, Jacques, 
and my grandmother, and m3’ grandfather, — God grant 
him heaven, for he suffered much from his ruin, which 
was mine, — but 3’ou two who are left, I love 3’ou both, 
unhappy as I am. Indeed, to know how much I love 
you, you will have to know how much I suffer ; but 
I don’t wish that, it would grieve 3^ou too much. I'hey 
speak to me as we would not speak to a dog ; they 
treat me like the worst of girls ; and yet I do examine 
myself before God, and I cannot find that I do wrong 
by them. Before 3’ou sang to me the marriage song I 
saw the mercy of God in my sufferings; for I had 
prayed to him to take me from the world, and I felt so 


Pierrette. 


167 


111 I said to myself, “ God hears me ! ” But, Jacques, 
now you are here, I want to live and go back to Brit- 
tany, to my grandmamma who loves me, though they 
say she stole eight thousand francs of mine. Jacques, 
is that so ? If they are mine could you get them ! But 
it is not true, for if my grandmother had eight thou- 
sand francs she would not live at Saint- Jacques. 

I don’t want to trouble her last days, my kind, good 
grandmamma, with the knowledge of my troubles ; she 
might die of it. Ah ! if she knew they made her 
grandchild scrub the pots and pans, she who used to 
say to me, when I wan^ted to help her after her troubles, 
“Don’t touch that, my darling; leave it — leave it — 
you will spoil your pretty fingers.” Ah ! my hands 
are never clean now. Sometimes I can hardly carry 
the basket home from market, it cuts my arm. Still I 
don’t think my cousins mean to be cruel ; but it is their 
way always to scold, and it seems that I have no right 
to leave them. My cousin Rogron is my guardian. 
One day when I wanted to run away because I could 
not bear it, and told them so, my cousin Sylvie said the 
gendarmes would go after me, for the law was my mas- 
ter. Oh ! I know now that cousins cannot take the 
place of father or mother, anj^ more than the saints can 
take the place of God. 

My poor Jacques, what do you suppose I could do 
with your money? Keep it for our journey. Oh! 


168 


Pierrette, 


how I think of j^ou and Pen-Hoel, and the big pond, — 
that’s where we had our only happy days. I shall 
have no more, for I feel I am going from bad to worse. 
I am very ill, Jacques. I have dreadful pains in my 
head, and in my bones, and back, which kill me, and 
I have no appetite except for horrid things, — roots and 
leaves and such things. Sometimes I cry, when I am 
all alone, for they won’t let me do an3’thing I like if 
they know it, not even cry. I have to hide to offer my 
tears to Him to whom we owe the mercies which we 
call afflictions. It must have been He who gave you 
the blessed thought to come and sing the marriage song 
beneath my window. Ah ! Jacques, my cousin heard 
3"Ou, and she said I had a lover. If you wish to be my 
lover, love me well. I promise to love j’ou always, 
as I did in the past, and to be 

Your faithful servant, 

Pierrette Lorrain. 

You will love me always, won’t you? 

She had brought a crust of bread from the kitchen, in 
which she now made a hole for the letter, and fastened 
it like a weight to her string. At midnight, having 
opened her window with extreme caution, she lowered 
the letter with the crust, which made no noise against 
either the wall of the house or the blinds. Presentl}" 
she felt the string pulled bj' Brigaut, who broke it and 


Pierrette, 


169 


then crept softly away. When he reached the middle 
of the square she could see him indistinctly by the 
starlight ; but he saw her quite clearly in the zone of 
light thrown by the candle. The two children stood 
thus for over an hour, Pierrette making him signs to go, 
he starting, she remaining, he coming back to his post, 
and Pierrette again signing that he must leave her. 
This was repeated till the child closed her window, 
went to bed, and blew out the candle. Once in bed 
she fell asleep, happy in heart though suffering in 
bodj’, — she had Brigaut’s letter under her pillow. 
She slept as the persecuted sleep, — a slumber bright 
with angels ; that slumber full of heavenly arabesques, 
in atmospheres of gold and lapis-lazuli, perceived and 
given to us by Raffaelle. 

The moral nature had such empire over that frail 
physical nature that on the morrow Pierrette rose light 
and joj^ous as a lark, as radiant and as gay. Such a 
change could not escape the vigilant eye of her cousin 
Sylvie, who, this time, instead of scolding her, set 
about watching her with the scrutiny of a magpie. 
“What reason is there for such happiness?” was a 
thought of jealousy, not of tyranny. If the colonel 
had not been in Sjdvie’s mind she would have said to 
Pierrette as formerly, “ Pierrette, 30U are very nois}^, 
and very regardless of what you have often been told.” 
But now the old maid resolved to spy upon her as only 


170 


Pierrette. 


old maids can spy. The day was still and gloomy, 
like the weather that precedes a storm. 

“ You don’t appear to be ill now, mademoiselle,” said 
Sylvie at dinner. “ Didn’t I tell you she put it all on 
to annoy us ? ” she cried, addressing her brother, and 
not waiting for Pierrette’s answer. 

“ On the contrar}’, cousin, I have a sort of fever — ” 

“Fever! what fever? You are as gay as a lark. 
Perhaps 3 0U have seen some one again ? ” 

Pierrette trembled and dropped her eyes on her 
plate. 

“ Tartufe ! ” cried Sylvie ; “ and only fourteen years 
old ! what a nature I Do you mean to come to a bad 
end?” 

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Pierrette, 
raising her sweet and luminous brown eyes to her 
cousin. 

“This evening,” said Sylvie, “you are to stay in 
the dining-room with a candle, and do 3"Our sewing. 
You are not wanted in the salon ; I sha’n’t have ^'ou 
looking into m3’ hand to help 3’our favorites.” 

Pierrette made no sign. 

“ Artful creature ! ” cried Sylvie, leaving the room. 

Rogron, who did not understand his sister’s anger, 
said to Pierrette: “What is all this about? Tr3^ to 
please 3’our cousin, Pierrette ; she is ver3’ indulgent to 
3’ou, very gentle, and if you put her out of temper the 


Pierrette, 


171 


fault is certainly yours. Why do you squabble so? 
For my part I like to live in peace. Look at Mademoi- 
selle Bathilde and take pattern by her.” 

Pierrette felt able to bear everything. Brigaut would 
come at midnight and bring her an answer, and that 
hope was the viaticum of her day. But she was using 
up her last strength. She did not go to bed, and stood 
waiting for the hour to strike. At last midnight 
sounded ; softly she opened the window ; this time she 
used a string made by tying bits of twine together. 
She had heard Brigaut’s step, and on drawing up the 
cord she found the following letter, which filled her 
with joy : — 


My dear Pierrette, — As you are so ill you must 
not tire yourself b}- waiting for me. You will hear me 
if I cry like an owl. Happily my father taught me to 
imitate their note. So when you hear the cry three 
times you will know I am there, and then you must let 
down the cord. But I shall not come again for some 
days. I hope then to bring you good news. 

Oh ! Pierrette, don’t talk of dying ! Pierrette, don’t 
think such things! All my heart shook, I felt as 
though I were dead myself at the mere idea. No, my 
Pierrette, you must not die ; you will live happy, and 
soon you shall be delivered from your persecutors. If 
I do not succeed in what I am undertaking for your 


172 


Pierrette, 


rescue, I shall appeal to the law, and I shall speak out 
before heaven and earth and tell how your wicked 
relations are treating 3"ou. I am certain that you have 
not many more days to suffer ; have patience, my 
Pierrette ! Jacques is watching over you as in the 
old days when we slid on the pond and I pulled you out 
of the hole in which we were nearly drowned together. 

Adieu, my dear Pierrette ; in a few days, if God 
wills, we shall be happy. Alas, I dare not tell you the 
only thing that ma}^ hinder our meeting. But God 
loves us ! In a few daj’s I shall see m3" dear Pierrette 
at libert}", without troubles, without an}^ one to hinder 
my looking at 3"Ou — for, ah I Pierrette, I hunger to see 
3’ou — Pierrette, Pierrette, who deigns to love me and 
to tell me so. Yes, Pierrette, I will be 3’our lover 
when I have earned the fortune 3"ou deserve ; till then 
I will be to 3"Ou only a devoted servant whose life is 
yours to do what 3’ou please with it. Adieu. 

Jacques Brigaut. 

Here is a letter of which the major’s son said nothing 
to Pierrette. He wrote it to Madame Lorrain at 
Nantes : — 

Madame Lorrain, — Your granddaughter will die, 
worn-out with ill-treatment, if you do not come to fetch 
her. I could scarcely recognize her ; and to show you 


Pierrette. 


173 


the state of things I inclose a letter I have received 
from Pierrette. You are thought here to have taken 
the money of your granddaughter, and 3*ou ought to 
justify yourself. If you can, come at once. We may 
still be happy ; but if you delay Pierrette will be dead. 

I am, with respect, your devoted servant, 

Jacques Brigadt. 

At Monsieur Frappier’s, Cabinet-maker, Grand’Kue, Provins. 

Brigaut’s fear was that the grandmother was dead. 

Though this letter of the youth whom in her inno- 
cence she called her lover was almost enigmatical to 
Pierrette, she believed in it with all her virgin faith. 
Her heart was filled with that sensation which travellers 
in the desert feel when they see from afar the palm-trees 
round a well. In a few days her misery would end — 
Jacques said so. She relied on this promise of her 
childhood’s friend ; and yet, as she laid the letter be- 
side the other, a dreadful thought came to her in 
foreboding words. 

“Poor Jacques,” she said to herself, “he does not 
know the hole into which I have now fallen ! ” 

Sylvie had heard Pierrette, and she had also heard 
Brigaut under her window. She jumped out of bed and 
rushed to the window to look through the blinds into 
the square and there she saw, in the moonlight, a man 
hurrying in the direction of the colonel’s house, in 


174 


Pierrette, 


front of which Brigaut happened to stop. The old 
maid gently opened her door, went upstairs, was 
amazed to find a light in Pierrette’s room, looked 
through the keyhole, and could see nothing. 

“ Pierrette,” she said, “ are you ill?” 

“ No, cousin,” said Pierrette, surprised. 

“ Why is your candle burning at this time of night? 
Open the door ; I must know what this means.” 

Pierrette went to the door bare-footed, and as soon 
as Sylvie entered the room she saw the cord, which 
Pierrette had forgotten to put away, not dreaming of 
a surprise. Sylvie jumped upon it. 

“ What is that for? ” she asked. 

“Nothing, cousin.” 

“Nothing!” she cried. “Always lying; you’ll 
never get to heaven that way. Go to bed ; you ’ll take 
cold.” 

She asked no more questions and went awa}’, leaving 
Pierrette terrified b}" her unusual clemency. Instead 
of exploding with rage, S3dvie had suddenly deter- 
mined to surprise Pierrette and the colonel together, 
to seize their letters and confound the two lovers who 
were deceiving her. Pierrette, inspired by a sense of 
danger, sewed the letters into her corset and covered 
them with calico. 

Here end the loves of Pierrette and Brigaut. 

Pierrette rejoiced in the thought that Jacques had 


Pierrette, 


175 


determined to hold no communication with her for 
some days, because her cousin’s suspicions would be 
quieted by dnding nothing to feed them. Sylvie did 
in fact spend the next three nights on her legs, and 
each evening in watching the innocent colonel, without 
discovering either in him or in Pierrette, or in the house 
or out of it, anything that betrayed their understand- 
ing. She sent Pierrette to confession, and seized that 
moment to search the child’s room, with the method 
and penetration of a spy or a custom-house officer. 
She found nothing. Her fury reached the apogee of 
human sentiments. If Pierrette had been there she 
would certainly have struck her remorselessly. To a 
woman of her temper, jealousy was less a sentiment 
than an occupation ; she existed in it, it made her 
heart beat, she felt emotions hitherto completeh" un- 
known to her ; the slightest sound or movement kept 
her on the qui vive ; she watched Pierrette with gloomy 
intentness. 

“ That miserable little wretch will kill me,” she said. 

Sylvie’s severity to her cousin reached the point of 
refined cruelty, and made the deplorable condition of 
the poor girl worse daily. She had fever regularly, 
and the pains in her head became intolerable. By the 
end of the week even the visitors at the house noticed 
her suffering face, which would have touched to pity all 
selfishness less cruel than theirs. It happened that 


176 


Pierrette. 


Doctor Neraud, possibly by Vhiet’s advice, did not 
come to the house during that week. The colonel, 
knowing himself suspected by Sylvie, was afraid to 
risk his marriage by showing any solicitude for Pier- 
rette. Bathilde explained the visible change in the 
girl by her natural growth. But at last, one Sunday 
evening, when Pierrette was in the salon, her suffer- 
ings overcame her and she fainted away. The colonel, 
who first saw her going, caught her in his arms and 
carried her to a sofa. 

“ She did it on purpose,” said Sylvie, looking at 
Mademoiselle Habert and the rest who were playing 
boston with her. 

“ I assure 3^ou 3^our cousin is very ill,” said the 
colonel. 

“ She seemed well enough in 3'our arms,” Sylvie 
said to him in a low voice, with a savage smile. 

“ The colonel is right,” said Madame de Chargeboeuf. 
“ You ought to send for a doctor. This morning at 
church every one was speaking, as they came out, of 
Mademoiselle Lorrain’s appearance.” 

“ I am dying,” said Pierrette. 

Desfondrilles called to S3’lvie and told her to un- 
fasten her cousin’s gown. Sylvie went up to the girl, 
saying, “ It is only a tantrum.” 

She unfastened the gown and was about to touch 
the corset, when Pierrette, roused b3’ the danger, sat 


Pierrette. 


177 


up with superhuman strength, exclaiming, “ No, no, 
I will go to bed.” 

Sylvie had, however, touched the corset and felt the 
papers. She let Pierrette go, saying to the company : 

“ What do you think now of her illness? I tell you 
it is all a pretence. You have no idea of the perversity 
of that child.” 

After the card-playing was over she kept Vinet from 
following the other guests ; she was furious and wanted 
vengeance, and was grossly rude to the colonel when 
he bade her good-night. Gouraud threw a look at 
the lawyer which threatened him to the depths of his 
being and seemed to put a ball in his entrails. Sylvie 
told Vinet to remain. When they were alone, she 
said, — 

“Never in my life, never in my born days, will I 
marry the colonel.” 

“Now that you have come to that decision I may 
speak,” said the lawyer. “The colonel is my friend, 
but I am more yours than his. Rogrou has done me 
services which I can never forget. I am as strong a 
friend as I am an enemy. Once in the Chamber I 
shall rise to power, and I will make your brother a 
receiver-general. Now swear to me, before I say 
more, that you will never repeat what I tell you.” 
(Sylvie made an aflSrmative sign.) “ In the first place, 
the brave colonel is a gambler — ” 

12 


178 


Pierrette, 


“ Ah ! ” exclaimed Sylvie. 

“ If it had not been for the embarrassments this vice 
has brought upon him, he might have been a marshal 
of France,” continued Vinet. “ He is capable of run- 
ning through your property ; but he is very astute ; you 
cannot be sure of not having children, and you told me 
yourself the risks you feared. No, if 3’ou want to 
marry, wait till I am in the Chamber and then take 
that old Desfondrilles, who shall be made chief justice. 
If you want revenge on the colonel make your brother 
marry Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf, — I can get her 
consent ; she has two thousand francs a year, and you 
wfll be connected with the de Chargeboeufs as I am. 
Recollect what I tell you, the Chargeboeufs will be glad 
to claim us for cousins some day.” 

“ Gouraud loves Pierrette,” was Sylvie’s only 
answer. 

“ He is quite capable of it,” said Vinet, “ and capable 
of marrjdng her after your death.” 

“ A fine calculation ! ” she said. 

“ I tell you that man has the shrewdness of the 
devil. Marry 3^our brother and announce that you 
mean to remain unmarried and will leave 3'our propertj^ 
to your nephews and nieces. That will strike a blow at 
Gouraud and Pierrette both I and you ’ll see the faces 
they’ll make.” 

“ Ah ! that ’s true,” cried the old maid, “ I can serve 


Pierrette, 


179 


them both right. She shall go to a shop, and get 
nothing from me. She has n’t a sou ; let her do as we 
did, — work.” 

Vinet departed, having put his plan into Sylvie’s 
head, her dogged obstinacy being well-known to him. 
The old maid, he was certain, would think the scheme 
her own, and carr}' it out. 

The lawyer found the colonel in the square, smoking 
a cigar while he waited for him. 

“ Halt ! ” said Gouraud ; “ you have pulled me down, 
but stones enough came with me to bury you — 

“ Colonel ! — ” 

“ Colonel or not, I shall give you your deserts. In 
the first place, you shall not be deputy — ” 

“ Colonel ! — ” 

‘ ‘ I control ten votes and the election depends 
on — 

“ Colonel, listen to me. Is there no one to marry 
but that old S3dvie? I have just been defending 3^ou 
to her ; 3"ou are accused and convicted of writing to 
Pierrette ; she saw you leave 3'our house at midnight 
and come to the girl’s window — ” 

“ Stuff and nonsense ! ” 

“ She means to marry her brother to Bathilde and 
leave her fortune to their children.” 

“ Rogron won’t have any.” 

“ Yes he will,” replied Vinet. “ But I promise to 


180 


Pierrette. 


find you some 3'oung and agreeable woman with a 
hundred and fifty thousand francs? Don’t be a fool ; 
how can }’ou and I afford to quarrel? Things have 
gone against 3’ou in spite of all my care ; but 3'ou don’t 
understand me.” 

“Then we must understand each other,” said the 
colonel. “Get me a wife with a hundred and fift3’ 
thousand francs before the elections ; if not — look out 
for 3’ourself ! I don’t like unpleasant bed-fellows, and 
you ’ve pulled the blankets all over to3"Our side. Good- 
evening.” 

“ You shall see,” said "'Vinet, grasping the colonel’s 
hand afiectionatel3\ 

About one o’clock that night three clear, sharp cries 
of an owl, wonderfull3" well imitated, echoed through the 
square. Pierrette heard them in her feverish sleep ; she 
jumped up, moist with perspiration, opened her window, 
saw Brigaut, and flung down a ball of silk, to which he 
fastened a letter. Sylvie, agitated b3' the events of 
the da3^ and her own indecision of mind, was not asleep ; 
she heard the owl. 

“Ah, bird of ill-omen!” she thought. “ Wh3", 
Pierrette is getting up ! What is she after ? ” 

Hearing the attic window open softl3", Sylvie rushed 
to her own window and heard the rustle of paper 
against her blinds. She fastened the strings of her 


Pierrette, 


181 


bed-gown and went quickly upstairs to Pierrette’s room, 
where she found the poor girl unwinding the silk and 
freeing the letter. 

“ Ha ! I’ve caught you ! ” cried the old woman, rush- 
ing to the window, from which she saw Jacques running 
at full speed. “ Give me that letter.” 

“ No, cousin,” said Pierrette, who, by one of those 
strong inspirations of youth sustained by her own soul, 
rose to a grandeur of resistance such as we admire in 
the history of certain peoples reduced to despair. 

“ Ha ! you will not? ” cried Sylvie, advancing upon 
the girl with a face full of hatred and fury. 

Pierrette fell back to get time to put her letter in her 
hand, which she clenched with unnatural force. Seeing 
this manoeuvre Sjlvie grasped the delicate white hand 
of the girl in her lobster claws and tried to open it. It 
was a frightful struggle, an infamous struggle ; it was 
more than a physical struggle ; it assailed the mind, the 
sole treasure of the human being, the thought, which 
God has placed beyond all earthly power and guards 
as the secret way between the sufferer and Himself. 
The two women, one dying, the other in the vigor of 
health, looked at each other fixedly. Pierrette’s eyes 
darted on her executioner the look the famous Templar 
on the rack cast upon Philippe le Bel, who could not 
bear it and fied thunderstricken. Sylvie, a woman and 
a jealous woman, answered that magnetic look with 


182 EugSnie GrrandeU 

“ Is there any hope? ” said Charles eagerly. 

“ What ! ” exclaimed his uncle, with well-acted pride, 
“ are you not my nephew? Your honor is ours. Is not 
your name Grandet? ” 

Charles rose, seized Pere Grandet, kissed him, turned 
pale, and left the room. Eugenie looked at her father 
with admiration. 

“ Well, good-by, des Grassins ; it is ail in your 
hands. Decoy those people as best you can ; lead 'em 
by the nose.” 

The two diplomatists shook hands. The old cooper 
accompanied the banker to the front door. Then, after 
closing it, he came back and plunged into his armchair, 
saying to Nanon, — 

“ Get me some black-currant ratafia.” 

Too excited, however, to remain long in one place, 
he got up, looked at the portrait of Monsieur de la 
Bertelliere, and began to sing, doing what Nanon called 
his dancing-steps, — 

“ Dans les gardes fran9aise8 
J’avais un bon papa.” 

Nanon, Madame Grandet, and Eugenie looked at 
each other in silence. The hilarity of the master al- 
ways frightened them when it reached its climax. The 
evening was soon over. Pere Grandet chose to go to 
bed early, and when he went to bed, everybody else was 


Eugenie GrandeL 


183 


expected to go too ; like as when Augustus drank, Po- 
land was drunk. On this occasion Nanon, Charles, and 
Eugenie were not less tired than the master. As for 
Madame Grandet, she slept, ate, drank, and walked 
according to the will of her husband. However, dur- 
ing the two hours consecrated to digestion, the cooper, 
more facetious than he had ever been in his life, uttered 
a number of his own particular apothegms, — a single 
one of which will give the measure of his mind. When 
he had drunk his ratafia, he looked at his glass and 
said, — 

“You have no sooner put your lips to a glass than 
it is empty ! Such is life. You can’t have and hold. 
Gold won’t circulate and stay in your purse. If it were 
not for that, life would be too fine.” 

He was jovial and benevolent. When Nanon came 
with her spinning-wheel, “You must be tired,” he 
said ; ‘ ‘ put away your hemp.” 

“ Ah, bah ! then I shall get sleepy,” she answered. 

“ Poor Nanon ! Will you have some ratafia? ” 

“I won’t refuse a good offer; madame makes it a 
deal better than the apothecaries. What they sell 
is all drugs.” 

“ They put too much sugar,” said the master ; “you 
can’t taste anything else.” 


184 


Pierrette. • 


She went back to her own bed, ripped open the 
corset, and read Brigaut’s two letters, which confounded 
her. She went to sleep in the greatest perplexity, — not 
imagining the terrible results to which her conduct was 
to lead. 

The letters sent by Brigaut to old Madame Lorrain 
reached her in a moment of ineffable jo}^ which the 
perusal of them troubled. The poor old woman had 
grieved deeply in living without her Pierrette beside 
her, but she had consoled her loneliness with the 
thought that the sacrifice of herself was in the interests 
of her grandchild. She was blessed with one of those 
ever-young hearts which are upheld and invigorated bj" 
the idea of sacrifice. Her old husband, whose only jo}’ 
was his little granddaughter, had grieved for Pierrette ; 
every da}" he had seemed to look for her. It was an 
old man’s grief, — on which such old men live, of which 
they die. 

Every one can now imagine the happiness which 
this poor old woman, living in a sort of almshouse, 
felt when she learned of a generous action, rare indeed 
but not impossible in France. The head of the house 
of Collinet, whose failure in 1814 had caused the 
Lorrains a loss of twenty-four thousand francs, had 
gone to America with his children after his disasters. 
He had too high a courage to remain a ruined man. 


Pierrette, 


185 


After eleven years of untold effort crowned by success 
he returned to Nantes to recover his position, leaving 
his eldest son in charge of his transatlantic house. He 
found Madame Lorrain of Pen-Hoel in the institution 
of Saint- Jacques, and was witness of the resignation 
with which this most unfortunate of his creditors bore 
her misery. 

“ God forgive you ! ” said the old woman, “ since you 
give me on the borders of my grave the means of se- 
curing the happiness of my dear granddaughter ; but 
alas ! it will not clear the debts of my poor husband ! ” 

Monsieur Collinet made over to the widow both the 
capital and the accrued interest, amounting to about 
forty-two thousand francs. His other creditors, pros- 
perous, rich, and intelligent merchants, had easily 
borne their losses, whereas the misfortunes of the Lor- 
rains seemed so irremediable to old Monsieur Collinet 
that he promised the widow to pay off her husband’s 
debts, to the amount of forty thousand francs more. 
When the Bourse of Nantes heard of this generous repa- 
ration they wished to receive Collinet to their board be- 
fore his certificates were granted b}' the Royal court at 
Rennes ; but the merchant refused the honor, prefer- 
ring to submit to the ordinary commercial rule. 

Madame Lorrain had received the money only the 
day before the post brought her Brigaut’s letter, in- 
closing that of Pierrette. Her first thought had been. 


186 


Pierrette, 


as she signed the receipt: “Now I can live with my 
Pierrette and marry her to that good Brigaut, who will 
make a fortune with mj^ money.” 

Therefore the moment she had read the fatal letters 
she made instant preparations to start for Provins. 
She left Nantes that night by the mail ; for some one 
had explained to her its celerity. In Paris she took the 
diligence for Troyes, which passes through Provins, and 
by half-past eleven at night she reached FrappiePs, 
where Brigaut, shocked at her despairing looks, told her 
of Pierrette’s state and promised to bring the poor girl 
to her instantly. His words so terrified the grandmother 
that she could not control her impatience and followed 
him to the square. When Pierrette screamed, the 
horror of that cry went to her heart as sharply as it did 
to Brigaut’ s. Together they would have roused the 
neighborhood if Rogron, in his terror, had not opened 
the door. The scream of the 3'oung girl at bay gave 
her grandmother the sudden strength of anger with 
which she carried her dear Pierrette in her arms to 
Frappier’s house, where Madame Frappier hastil}" ar- 
ranged Brigaut’s own room for the old woman and her 
treasure. In that poor room, on a bed half-made, the 
sufferer was deposited ; and there she fainted away, 
holding her hand still clenched, wounded, bleeding, 
with the nails deep bedded in the flesh. Brigaut, 
Frappier, his wife, and the old woman stood looking at 


Pierrette. 


187 


Pierrette in silence, all four of them in a state of inde- 
scribable amazement. 

“ Why is her hand bloody? ” said the grandmother 
at last. 

Pierrette, overcome by the sleep which follows all 
abnormal displays of strength, and dimly conscious 
that she was safe from violence, gradually unbent her 
fingers. Brigaut’s letter fell from them like an answer. 

“ They tried to take my letter from her,” said Bri- 
gaut, falling on his knees and picking up the lines in 
which he had told his little friend to come instantly 
and softly away from the house. He kissed with pious 
love the martyr’s hand. 

It was a sight that made those present tremble when 
they saw the old gray woman, a sublime spectre, standing 
beside her grandchild’s pillow. Terror and vengeance 
wrote their fierce expressions in the wrinkles that 
lined her skin of yellow ivory ; her forehead, half 
hidden by the straggling meshes of her gray hair, 
expressed a solemn anger. She read, with a power of 
intuition given to the aged when near their grave, 
Pierrette’s whole life, on which her mind had dwelt 
throughout her journey. She divined the illness of her 
darling, and knew that she was threatened with death. 
Two big tears painfully rose in her wan gray eyes, 
from which her troubles had worn both lashes and 
eyebrows, two pearls of anguish, forming within them 


188 


Pierrette* 


and giving them a dreadful brightness ; then each tear 
swelled and rolled down the withered cheek, but did 
not wet it. 

“ They have killed her!” she said at last, clasping 
her hands. 

She fell on her knees which struck sharp blows on 
the brick-laid floor, making a vow no doubt to Saint 
Anne d’Auray, the most powerful of the madonnas of 
Brittany. 

“ A doctor from Paris,” she said to Brigaut. ^^Go 
and fetch one, Brigaut, go ! ” 

She took him b}" the shoulder and gave him a des- 
potic push to send him from the room. 

“ I was coming, m}^ lad, when you wi’ote me ; I am 
rich, — here, take this,” she cried, recalling him, and 
unfastening as she spoke the strings that tied her short- 
gown. Then she drew a paper from her bosom in 
which were fort3’-two bank-bills, saying, “ Take what 
is necessary, and bring back the greatest doctor in 
Paris.” 

“Keep those,” said Frappier; “he can’t change 
thousand franc notes now. I have mone^^ and the 
diligence will be passing presently ; he can certainly 
find a place on it. But before he goes we had better 
consult Doctor Martener ; he will tell us the best physi- 
cian in Paris. The diligence won’t pass for over an 
hour, — we have time enough.” 


Pierrette. 


189 


Brigaut woke up Monsieur Martener, and brought 
him at once. The doctor was not a little surprised to 
find Mademoiselle Lorrain at Frappier’s. Brigaut told 
him of the scene that had just taken place at the Ro- 
grons’ ; but even so the doctor did not at first suspect 
the horror of it, nor the extent of the injury done. 
Martener gave the address of the celebrated Horace 
Bianchon, and Brigaut started for Paris by the diligence. 
Monsieur Martener then sat down and examined first 
the bruised and bloody hand which lay outside the 
bed. 

“ She could not have given these wounds herself,” 
he said. 

“ No; the horrible woman to whom I had the mis- 
fortune to trust her was murdering her,” said the 
grandmother. “ My poor Pierrette was screaming 
‘ Help ! help ! I ’m dying,’ — enough to touch the heart 
of an executioner.” 

“But why was it?” said the doctor, feeling Pier- 
rette’s pulse. “ She is very ill,” he added, examining 
her with a light. “She must have suffered terribly; 
I don’t understand why she has not been properly 
cared for.” 

“ I shall complain to the authorities,” said the grand- 
mother. “Those Rogrons asked me for my child 
in a letter, saying they had twelve thousand francs a 
year and would take care of her ; had the}" the right to 


190 


Pierrette, 


make her their servant and force her to do work for 
which she had not the strength? ” 

“ They did not choose to see the most visible of all 
maladies to which young girls are liable. She needed 
the utmost care/’ cried Monsieur Martener. 

Pierrette was awakened by the light which Madame 
Frappier was holding near her face, and bj^ the horrible 
sufferings in her head caused by the reaction of her 
struggle. * 

“Ah! Monsieur Martener, I am very ill,” she said 
in her pretty voice. 

“Where is the pain, my little friend?” asked the 
doctor. 

“Here,” she said, touching her head above the left 
ear. 

“ There’s an abscess,” said the doctor, after feeling 
the head for a long time and questioning Pierrette on 
her sufferings. “You must tell us all, my child, so 
that we may know how to cure you. Why is your 
hand like this? You could not have given yourself 
that wound.” 

Pierrette related the struggle between herself and her 
cousin S3dvie. 

“ Make her talk,” said the doctor to the grandmother, 
“ and find out the whole truth. I will wait the arrival 
of the doctor from Paris ; and we will send for the sur- 
geon in charge of the hospital here, and have a consul- 


Pierrette. 


191 


tation. The case seems to me a very serious one. 
Meantime I will send you a quieting draught so that 
mademoiselle may sleep ; she needs sleep.” 

Left alone with her granddaughter the old Breton 
woman exerted her influence over the child and made 
her tell all; she let her know that she had money 
enough now for all three, and promised that Brigaut 
should live with them. The poor girl admitted her 
martyrdom, not imagining the events to which her ad- 
missions would give rise. The monstrosity of two 
beings without affection and without conception of 
family life opened to the old woman a world of woe 
as far from her knowledge as the morals of savages 
may have seemed to the flrst discoverers who set foot 
in America. 

The arrival of her grandmother, the certainty of 
living with her in comfort soothed Pierrette’s mind as 
the sleeping draught soothed her body. The old woman 
watched her darling, kissing her forehead, hair, and 
hands, as the holy women of old kissed the hand^ of 
Jesus when they laid him in the tomb. 


192 


Pierrette, 


IX. 

THE FAMILY COUNCIL. 

At nine o’clock that morning Monsieur Martener 
went to see Monsieur Tiphaine, and related to him the 
scene between Pierrette and Sylvie, and the tortures of 
all kinds, moral and physical, to which the Rogrons 
had subjected their cousin, and the two alarming forms 
of illness which their crueltj’ had developed. Monsieur 
Tiphaine sent for Auffraj^ the notary, one of Pierrette's 
own relations on the maternal side. 

At this particular time the war between the Vinet 
part}^ and the Tiphaine part^' was at its height. The 
scandals which the Rogrons and their adherents were 
disseminating through the town about the liaison of 
Madame Tiphaine’s mother with the banker du Tillet, 
and the bankruptcy of her father (a forger, they said) , 
were all the more exasperating to the Tiphaines because 
these things were malicious truths, not libels. Such 
wounds cut deep ; they go to the quick of feelings and 
of interests. These speeches, repeated to the parti- 
sans of the Tiphaines by the same mouths which told 
the Rogrons of the sneers of “those women” of the 


Pierrette, 


193 


Tiphaine clique, fed the hatreds of both sides, now in- 
creased by the political element. The animosities caused 
at this time in France by the spirit of party, the vio- 
lences of which were excessive, were everywhere mixed 
up, as in Provins, with selfish schemes and wounded or 
vindictive individual interests. Each party eagerly 
seized on whatever might injure the rival party. Per- 
sonal hatreds and self-love mingled as much as political 
animosity in even the smallest matters, and were 
carried to hitherto unheard-of lengths. A whole town 
would be roused to excitement over some private strug- 
gle, until it took the character of a political debate. 

Monsieur Tiphaine at once perceived in the case of 
Pierrette against the Rogrons a means of humbling, 
mortifying, and dishonoring the masters of that salon 
where plans against the monarchy were made and an 
opposition journal born. The public prosecutor was 
called in ; and together with Monsieur Auflfray the 
notary, Pierrette’s relation, and Monsieur Martener, a 
cautious consultation was held in the utmost secrecy 
as to the proper course to follow. Monsieur Martener 
agreed to advise Pierrette’s grandmother to apply to 
the courts to have Auffray appointed guardian to his 
young relation. The guardian could then convene a 
“ Family Council,” and, backed by the testimony of 
three doctors, demand the girl’s release from the au- 
thority of the Rogrons. The aflTair thus managed 
13 


194 


Pierrette, 


would have to go before the courts, and the public 
prosecutor, Monsieur Lesourd, would see that it was 
taken to a criminal court by demanding an inquiry. 

Towards midday all Provins was roused by the 
strange news of what had happened during the night at 
the Rogrons’. Pierrette’s cries had been faintly heard, 
though they were soon over. No one had risen to 
inquire what they meant, but every one said the next 
day, “Did you hear those screams about one in the 
morning?” Gossip and comments soon magnified 
the horrible drama, and a crowd collected in front of 
Frappier’s shop, asking the worthy cabinet-maker for 
information, and hearing from him how Pierrette was 
brought to his house with her fingers broken and the 
hand bloody. 

Towards one in the afternoon the post-chaise of 
Doctor Bianchon, who was accompanied by Brigaut, 
stopped before the house, and Madame Frappier went 
at once to summon Monsieur Martener and the sur- 
geon in charge of the hospital. Thus the gossip of the 
town received confirmation. The Rogrons were de- 
clared to have ill-used their cousin deliberately, and 
to have come near killing her. Vinet heard the news 
while attending to his business in the law courts ; he 
left everything and hurried to the Rogrons. Rogron 
and his sister had just finished breakfast. Sylvie was 
reluctant to tell her brother of her discomfiture of the 


Pierrette, 


195 


night before ; but he pressed her with questions, to 
which she would make no other answer than, “ That’s 
not your business.” She went and came from the 
kitchen to the dining-room on pretence of preparing 
the breakfast, but chiefly to avoid discussion. She 
was alone when Vinet entered. 

You know what ’s happened?” said the lawyer. 

“ No,” said Sylvie. 

“ You will be arrested on a criminal charge,” replied 
Vinet, “from the way things are now going about 
Pierrette.” 

“ A criminal charge ! ” cried Rogron, who had come 
into the room. “ Why? What for? ” 

“First of all,” said the lawyer, looking at Sjdvie, 
“ explain to me without concealmenfltand as if you 
stood before God, what happened in this house last 
night — they talk of amputating Pierrette’s hand.” 

Sylvie turned livid and shuddered. 

“ Then there is some truth in it?” said Vinet. 

Mademoiselle Rogron related the scene, trying to 
excuse herself ; but, prodded with questions, she ac- 
knowledged the facts of the horrible struggle. 

“ If you have only injured her fingers you will be 
taken before the police court for a misdemeanor ; but 
if they cut off her hand you may be tried at the As- 
sizes for a worse offence. The Tiphaines will do their 
best to get you there.” 


196 


Pierrette. 


S3'lvie, more dead than alive, confessed her jealousy, 
and, what was harder to do, confessed also that her 
suspicions were unfounded. 

“Heavens, what a case this will make!” cried the 
lawj^er. “ You and your brother may be ruined by 
it ; you will be abandoned by most people whether 
3’ou win or lose. If you lose, you will have to leave 
Provins.” 

“ Oh, my dear Monsieur Vinet, j'ou who are such a 
great lawj^er,” said Rogron, terrified, “advise us! 
save us ! ” 

The craft}" Vinet worked the terror of the two im- 
beciles to its utmost, declaring that Madame and 
Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf might be unwilling to 
enter their house again. To be abandoned b}’ women 
of their rank would be a terrible condemnation. At 
length, after an hour of adroit manoeuvring, it was 
agreed that Vinet must have some powerful motive 
in taking the case, that would impress the minds of 
all Provins and explain his efforts on behalf of the 
Rogrons. This motive the}" determined should be 
Rogi-on’s marriage to Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf ; it 
should be announced that very day and the banns 
published on Sunday. The contract could be drawn 
immediately. Mademoiselle Rogron agreed, in con- 
sideration of the marriage, to appear in the contract 
as settling her capital on her brother, retaining only 


Pierrette, 


197 


the income of it. Vinet made Rogron and his sister 
comprehend the necessity of antedating the document 
by two or three days, so as to commit the mother and 
daughter in the eyes of the public and give them a 
reason for continuing their visits. 

‘‘ Sign that contract and I ’ll take upon myself to 
get you safely out of this affair,” said the lawyer. 
“ There will be a terrible fight ; but I will put my 
whole soul into it — you ’ll have to make me a votive 
offering.” 

“ Oh, yes, yes,” said Rogron. 

By half-past eleven the lawyer had plenary powers 
to draw the contract and conduct the defence of the 
Rogrons. At twelve o’clock application was made to 
Monsieur Tiphaine, as a judge sitting in chambers, 
against Brigaut and the widow Lorrain for having 
abducted Pierrette Lorrain, a minor, from the house 
of her legal guardian. In this way the bold lawyer 
became the aggressor and made Rogron the injured 
party. He spoke of the matter from this point of view 
in the court-house. 

The judge postponed the hearing till four o’clock. 
Needless to describe the excitement in the town. Mon- 
sieur Tiphaine knew that by three o’clock the consulta- 
tion of doctors would be over and their report drawn 
up ; he wished Auffraj", as surrogate-guardian, to be at 
the hearing armed with that report. 


198 


Pierrette. 


The announcement of Rogron’s marriage and the 
sacrifices made by Sylvie in the contract alienated two 
important supporters from the brother and sister, 
namely, — Mademoiselle Habert and the colonel, whose 
hopes were thus annihilated. They remained, how- 
ever, ostensibly on the Rogron side for the purpose of 
injuring it. Consequentlj', as soon as Monsieur Mar- 
tener mentioned the alarming condition of Pierrette’s 
head. Celeste and the colonel told of the blow she had 
given herself during the evening when Sylvie had 
forced her to leave the salon ; and they related the 
old maid’s barbarous and unfeeling comments, with 
other statements proving her cruelty to her sufifering 
cousin. Vinet had foreseen this storm; but he had 
won the entire fortune of the Rogrons for Mademoi- 
selle de Chargeboeuf, and he promised himself that in a 
few weeks she should be mistress of the Rogron house, 
and reign with him over Provins, and even bring 
about a fusion with the Breautej'S and the aristocrats 
in the interests of his ambition. 

From midday to four o’clock all the ladies of the 
Tiphaine clique sent to inquire after Mademoiselle 
Lorrain. She, poor girl, was wholly ignorant of the 
commotion she was causing in the little town. In the 
midst of her suflTerings she was ineffably happy in 
recovering her grandmother and Brigaut, the two ob- 
jects of her affection. Brigaut’s ej’es were constantly 


Pierrette. 


199 


full of tears. The old grandmother sat by the bed and 
caressed her darling. To the three doctors she told 
every detail she had obtained from Pierrette as to her 
life in the Rogron house. Horace Bianchon expressed 
his indignation in vehement language. Shocked at 
such barbarity he insisted on all the ph3"sicians in the 
town being called in to see the case ; the consequence 
was that Dr. Neraud, the friend of the Rogrons, was 
present. The report was unanimously signed. It is 
useless to give the text of it here. If Moliere’s medi- 
cal terms were barbarous, those of modern science 
have the advantage of being so clear that the explana- 
tion of Pierrette’s malady, though natural and unfor- 
tunately common, horrified all ears. 

At four o’clock, after the usual rising of the court, 
president Tiphaine again took his seat, when Madame 
Lorrain, accompanied b}" Monsieur Auffray and Bri- 
gaut and a crowd of interested persons, entered the 
court-room. Vinet was alone. This contrast struck 
the minds of those present. The law^^er, who still 
wore his robe, turned his cold face to the judge, settled 
his spectacles on his pallid green e^^es, and then in a 
shrill, persistent voice he stated that two strangers had 
forced themselves at night into the Rogron domicile 
and had abducted therefrom the minor Lorrain. The 
legal rights were with the guardian, who now demanded 
the restoration of his ward. 


200 


Pierrette. 


Monsieur Auffray rose, as surrogate-guardian, and 
requested to be heard. . 

“If the judge,” he said, “will admit the report, 
which I hold in my hand, signed by one of the most 
famous physicians in Paris, and by all the physicians 
in Provins, he will understand not only that the de- 
mand of the Sieur Rogron is senseless, but also that 
the grandmother of the minor had grave cause to 
instantly remove her from her persecutors. Here are 
the facts. The report of these phj^sicians attribute the 
almost dying condition of the said minor to the ill- 
treatment she has received from the Sieur Rogron and 
his sister. We shall, as the law directs, convoke a 
Family Council with the least possible delay, and dis- 
cuss the question as to whether or not the guardian 
should be deposed. And we now ask that the minor 
be not returned to the domicile of the said guardian 
but that she be confided to some member of her family 
who shall be designated by the judge.” 

Vinet replied, declaring that the physicians’ report 
ought to have been submitted to him in order that he 
might have disproved it. 

“ Not submitted to your side,” said the judge, 
severely, “ but possibly to the procureiir du roi. The 
case is heard.” 

The judge then wrote at the bottom of the petition 
the following order : — 


Pierrette, 


201 


Whereas it appears, from a deliberate and unani- 
mous report of all the ph3’sicians of this town, together 
with Doctor Bianchon of the medical faculty of Paris, 
that the minor Lorrain, claimed by Jerome-Denis 
Rogron, her guardian, is extremely ill in consequence 
of ill-treatment and personal assault in the house of 
the said guardian and his sister: 

“We, president of the court of Provins, passing upon 
the said petition, order that until the Family" Council is 
held the minor Lorrain is not to be returned to the 
household of her said guardian, but shall be kept in 
that of her surrogate-guardian. 

“ And further, considering the state in which the said 
minor now is, and the traces of violence which, accord- 
ing to the report of the phj’sicians, are now upon her 
person, we commission the attending physician and the 
surgeon in charge of the hospital of Provins to visit 
her, and in case the injuries from the said assault be- 
come alarming, the matter will be held to await the 
action of the criminal courts ; and this without preju- 
dice to the civil suit undertaken by Auffray the surro- 
gate-guardian.” 

This severe judgment was read out by President 
Tiphaine in a loud and distinct voice. 

“ Why not send them to the galleys at once?” said 
Vinet. “ And all this fuss about a girl who was carry- 
ing on an intrigue with an apprentice to a cabinet 


202 


Pierrette, 


maker ! If the case goes on in this way/^ he cried, 
insolentl}^, “we shall demand other judges on the 
ground of legitimate suspicion.” 

Vinet left the court-room, and went among the chief 
men of his party to explain Rogron’s position, declar- 
ing that he had never so much as given a flip to his 
cousin, and that the judge had viewed him much less 
as Pierrette’s guardian than as a leading elector in 
Provins. 

To hear Vinet, people might have supposed that the 
Tiphaines were making a great fuss about nothing ; 
the mountain was bringing forth a mouse. Sylvie, an 
eminently virtuous and pious woman, had discovered 
an intrigue between her brother’s ward and a workman, 
a Breton named Brigaut. The scoundrel knew very 
well that the girl would have her grandmother’s monej', 
and he wished to seduce her (Vinet to talk of that!). 
Mademoiselle Rogron, who had discovered letters 
proving the depravit}’ of the girl, was not as much to 
blame as the Tiphaines were trying to make out. If 
she did use some violence to get possession of these 
letters (which was no wonder, when we consider what 
Breton obstinacj" is), how could Rogron be considered 
responsible for that? 

The law3'er went on to make the matter a partisan 
affair, and to give it a political color. 

“They who listen to only one bell hear onl}’ one 


Pierrette* 


203 


sound,” said the wise men. “ Have you heard what 
Vinet says? Vinet explains things clearly.” 

Frappier’s house being thought injurious to Pierrette, 
owing to the noise in the street which increased the suf- 
ferings in her head, she was taken to that of her surro- 
gate guardian, the change being as necessar}^ medically 
as it was judicially. The removal was made with the 
utmost caution, and was calculated to produce a great 
public effect. Pierrette was laid on a mattress and 
carried on a stretcher b}^ two men ; a Gray Sister 
walked beside her with a bottle of sal volatile in her 
hand, while the grandmother, Brigaut, Madame Auffray, 
and her maid followed. People were at their windows 
and doors to see the procession pass. Certainly the 
state in which the}" saw Pierrette, pale as death, gave 
immense advantage to the party against the Rogrons. 
The Aufrra3"s were determined to prove to the whole 
town that the judge was right in the decision he had 
given. Pierrette and her grandmother were installed 
on the second floor of Monsieur Auflray’s house. The 
notary and his wife gave her every care with the 
greatest hospitality, which was not without a little 
ostentation in it. Pierrette had her grandmother to 
nurse her; and Monsieur Martener and the head- 
surgeon of the hospital attended her. 

On the evening of this day exaggerations began on 
both sides. The Rogron salon was crowded. Vinet 


204 


Pierrette, 


had stirred up the whole Liberal partj^ on the subject. 
The Chargeboeuf ladies dined with the Rogrons, for the 
contract was to be signed that evening. Vinet had 
had the banns posted at the mayor’s office in the 
afternoon. He made light of the Pierrette affair. If 
the Provins court was prejudiced, the Royal courts 
would appreciate the facts, he said, and the Auffrays 
would think twice before they flung themselves into 
such a suit. The alliance of the Rogrons with the 
Chargeboeufs was an immense consideration in the minds 
of a certain class of people. To them it made the 
Rogrons white as snow and Pierrette an evilly disposed 
little girl, a serpent warmed in their bosom. 

In Madame Tiphaine’s salon vengeance was had for 
all the mischievous scandals that the Vinet partj" had 
disseminated for the last two years. The Rogrons 
were monsters, and the guardian should undergo a 
criminal trial. In the Lower town, Pierrette was quite 
well ; in the Upper town she was dying ; at the Ro- 
grons’ she had scratched her wrist: at Madame Ti- 
phaine’s her Angers were fractured and one was to be cut 
off. The next day the “ Courrier de Provins,” had a 
plausible article, extremely well-written, a masterpiece 
of insinuations mingled with legal points, which showed 
that there was no case whatever against Rogron. The 
‘‘ Bee-hive,” which did not appear till two daj'S later, 
could not answer without becoming defamatory ; it 


Pierrette, 


205 


replied, however, that in an affair like this it was best 
to wait until the law took its course. 

The Family Council was selected by i\iQjuge depaix 
of the canton of Provins, and consisted of Rogron and 
the two Messieurs Auffray, the nearest relatives, and 
Monsieur Ciprey, nephew of Pierrette’s maternal grand- 
mother. To these were joined Monsieur Habert, 
Pierrette’s confessor, and Colonel Gouraud, who had 
always professed himself a comrade and friend of her 
father, Colonel Lorrain. The impartiality of the judge 
in these selections was much applauded, — Monsieur 
Habert and Colonel Gouraud being considered the firm 
friends of the Rogrons. 

The serious situation in which Rogron found himself 
made him ask for the assistance of a lawyer (and he 
named Vinet) at the Family Council. By this man- 
oeuvre, evidently advised by Vinet himself, Rogron 
succeeded in postponing the meeting of the council till 
the end of December. At that time Monsieur Tiphaine 
and his wife would be settled in Paris for the opening 
of the Chambers ; and the ministerial party would be 
left without its head. Vinet had already worked upon 
Desfondrilles, the deputy-judge, in case the matter 
should go, after the hearing before the council, to the 
criminal courts. 

Vinet spoke for three hours before the Family 
Council ; he proved the existence of an intrigue be- 


206 


Pierrette, 


tween Pierrette and Brigaut, which justified all Made- 
moiselle Rogron’s severity. He showed how natural 
it was that the guardian should have left the manage- 
ment of his ward to a woman ; he dwelt on the fact 
that Rogron had not interfered with Pierrette’s edu- 
cation as planned by his sister Sylvie. But in spite 
of Vinet’s efforts the Council were unanimous in re- 
moving Rogron from the guardianship. Monsieur 
Auffray was appointed in his place, and Monsieur 
Ciprey was made surrogate. The Council summoned 
before it and examined Ad^le, the servant-woman, 
who testified against her late masters ; also Mademoi- 
selle Habert, who related the cruel remarks made by 
Mademoiselle Rogron on the evening when Pierrette 
had given herself a frightful blow, heard by all the 
company, and the speech of Madame de Chargeboeuf 
about the girl’s health. Brigaut produced the letter 
he had received from Pierrette, which proved their 
innocence and stated her ill-treatment. Proof was 
given that the condition of the minor was the result 
of neglect on the part of the guardian, who was re- 
sponsible for all that concerned his ward. Pierrette’s 
illness had been apparent to every one, even to per- 
sons in the town who were strangers to the family, 
yet the guardian had done nothing for her. The charge 
of ill-treatment was therefore sustained against Ro* 
gron ; and the case would now go before the public. 


Pierrette, 


207 


Rogron, advised by Vinet, opposed the acceptance 
of the report of the Council by the court. The au- 
thorities then intervened in consequence of Pierrette’s 
state, which was daily growing worse. The trial of 
the case, though placed at once upon the docket, was 
postponed until the month of March. 1828, to wait 
events. 


208 


Pierrette* 


' X. 

VERDICTS LEGAL AND OTHElu 

Meantime Rogron’s marriage with Mademoiselle ae 
Chargeboeuf took place. S3dvie moved to the second 
floor of the house, which she shared with Madame de 
Chargebceuf, for the first floor was entire!}" taken up 
b}" the new wife. The beautiful Madame Rogron suc- 
ceeded to the social place of the beautiful Madame 
Tiphaine. The influence of the marriage was immense. 
No one now came to visit S^^lvie, but Madame Ro- 
gron’s salon was always full. 

Sustained by the influence of his mother-in-law and 
the bankers du Tillet and Nucingen, Monsieur Ti- 
phaine was fortunate enough to do some service to 
the administration ; he became one of its chief ora- 
tors, was made judge in the civil courts, and ob- 
tained the appointment of his nephew Lesourd to his 
own vacant place as president of the court of Provins. 
This appointment greatly anno^-ed Desfondrilles. The 
Keeper of the Seals sent down one of his own proteges 
to fill Lesourd’s place. The promotion of Monsieur 
Tiphaine and his translation to Paris were therefore of 


Pierrette. 


209 


no benefit at all to the Vinet party ; but Vinet never- 
theless made a clever use of the result. He had al- 
ways told the Provins people that they were being 
used as a stepping-stone to raise the crafty Madame 
Tiphaine into grandeur ; Tiphaine himself had tricked 
them ; Madame Tiphaine despised both Provins and 
its people in her heart, and would never return there 
again. Just at this crisis Monsieur Tiphaine’s father 
died ; his son inherited a fine estate and sold his house 
in Provins to Monsieur Julliard. The sale proved to 
the minds of all how little the Tiphaines thought of 
Provins. Vinet was right; Vinet had been a true 
prophet. These things had great influence on the 
question of Pierrette’s guardianship. 

Thus the dreadful martyrdom brutally inflicted on 
the poor child by two imbecile tyrants (which led, 
through its consequences, to the terrible operation of 
trepanning, performed by Monsieur Martener under the 
advice of Doctor Bianchon) , — all this horrible drama 
reduced to judicial form was left to float in the vile 
mess called in legal parlance the calendar. The case 
was made to drag through the delays and the inter- 
minable labyrinths of the law, by the shuflGlings of 
an unprincipled lawyer; and during all this time the 
calumniated girl languished in the agony of the worst 
pain known to science. 

Monsieur Martener, together with the Auffray family, 

14 


210 


Pierrette. 


were soon charmed by the beauty of Pierrette’s nature 
and the character of her old grandmother, whose 
feelings, ideas, and ways bore the stamp of Roman 
antiquitj^ — this matron of the Marais was like a 
woman in Plutarch. 

Doctor Martener struggled bravely with death, which 
already grasped its prey. From the first, Bianchon 
and the hospital surgeon had considered Pierrette 
doomed ; and there now took place between the doctor 
and the disease, the former relying on Pierrette’s 
youth, one of those struggles which physicians alone 
comprehend, — the reward of which, in case of success, 
is never found in the venal pay nor in the patients 
themselves, but in the gentle satisfactions of conscience, 
in the invisible ideal palm gathered by true artists 
from the contentment which fills their soul after ac- 
complishing a noble work. The physician strains to- 
wards good as the artist towards beauty, each impelled 
by that grand sentiment which we call virtue. This 
daily contest wiped out of Doctor Martener’s mind the 
petty irritations of that other contest of the Tiphaines 
and the Vinets, — as alwa3"s happens to men when they 
find themselves face to face with a great and real misery 
to conquer. 

Monsieur Martener had begun his career in Paris; 
but the cruel activity" of the city and its insensibilit}’^ to 
its masses of suflering had shocked his gentle soul, 


Pierrette, 


211 


fitted only for the quiet life of the provinces. More- 
over, he was under the yoke of his beautiful native 
land. He returned to Provins, where he married and 
settled, and cared almost lovingly for the people, who 
were to him like a large family. During the whole of 
Pierrette’s illness he was careful not to speak of her. 
His reluctance to answer the questions of those who 
asked about her was so evident that persons soon 
ceased to put them. Pierrette was to him, what indeed 
she truly was, a poem, mysterious, profound, vast in 
suffering, such as doctors find at times in their terrible 
experience. He felt an admiration for this delicate 
young creature which he would not share with any one. 

This feeling of the physician for his patient was, 
however, unconsciously communicated (like all true 
feelings) to Monsieur and Madame Auffray, whose 
house became, so long as Pierrette was in it, quiet 
and silent. The children, who had formerly played so 
jo^’ously with her, agreed among themselves with the 
loving grace of childhood to be neither noisy not 
troublesome. The}^ made it a point of honor to be 
good because Pierrette was ill. Monsieur Auffray’s 
house was in the Upper town, beneath the ruins of the 
Chateau, and it was built upon a sort of terrace formed 
by the overthrow of the old ramparts. The occupants 
could have a view of the valley from the little fruit- 
garden inclosed by walls which overlooked the town 


212 


Pierrette, 


The roofs of the other houses came to about the level 
of the lower wall of this garden. Along the terrace 
ran a path, by which Monsieur Auffray’s study could 
be entered through a glass door ; at the other end of 
the path was an arbor of grape vines and a fig-tree, 
beneath which stood a round table, a bench and some 
chairs, painted green. Pierrette’s bedroom was above 
the studj" of her new guardian. Madame Lorrain 
slept in a cot beside her grandchild. From her window 
Pierrette could see the whole of the glorious valley of 
Provins, which she hardly knew, so seldom had she 
left that dreadful house of the Kogrons. When the 
weather was fine she loved to drag herself, resting 
on her grandmother’s arm, to the vine-clad arbor. Bri- 
gaut, unable to work, came three times a day to see 
his little friend ; he was gnawed by a grief which made 
him indifferent to life. He lay in wait like a dog for 
Monsieur Martener, and followed him when he left the 
house. The old grandmother, drunk with grief, had 
the courage to conceal her despair ; she showed her 
darling the smiling face she formerly wore at Pen-Hoel. 
In her desire to produce that illusion in the girl’s mind, 
she made her a little Breton cap like the one Pierrette 
had worn on her first arrival in Provins ; it made the 
darling seem more like her childlike self; in it she was 
delightful to look upon, her sweet face circled with a 
halo of cambric and fluted lace. Her skin, white with 


Pierrette, 


213 


the whiteness of unglazed porcelain, her forehead, 
where suffering had printed the semblance of deep 
thought, the purity of the lines refined by illness, the 
slowness of the glances, and the occasional fixity of the 
eyes, made Pierrette an almost perfect embodiment of 
melancholy. She was served by all with a sort of 
fanaticism ; she was felt to be so gentle, so tender, so 
loving. Madame Martener sent her piano to her sister 
Madame Auffray, thinking to amuse Pierrette who was 
passionately fond of music. It was a poem to watch 
her listening to a theme of Weber, or Beethoven, or 
Herold, — her eyes raised, her lips silent, regretting no 
doubt the life she felt escaping her. The cure Peroux 
and Monsieur Habert, her two religious comforters, 
admired her saintly resignation. Surelj^ the seraphic 
perfection of young girls and young men marked with 
the hectic of death, is a wonderful fact worthy of the 
attention alike of philosophers and of heedless minds. 
He who has ever seen one of these sublime departures 
from this life can never remain, or become, an un- 
believer. Such beings exhale, as it were, a celestial 
fragrance ; their glances speak of God ; their voices 
are eloquent in the simplest words ; often they ring 
like some seraphic instrument revealing the secrets of 
the future. When Monsieur Martener praised her for 
having faithfully followed a harsh prescription the little 
angel replied, and with what a glance ! — 


214 


Pierrette. 


“ I want to live, dear Monsieur Martener; but less 
for myself than for my grandmother, for my Brigaut, 
for all of you who will grieve at my death.” 

The first time she went into the garden on a beauti- 
ful sunny day in November attended by all the house- 
hold, Madame Auffray asked her if she was tired. 

“ No, now that I have no sufferings but those God 
sends I can bear all,” she said. “The joy of being 
loved gives me strength to suffer.” 

That was the only time (and then vaguely) that she 
ever alluded to her horrible martyrdom at the Rogrons, 
whom she never mentioned, and of whom no one re- 
minded her, knowing well how painful the memory 
must be. 

“ Dear Madame Auffray,” she said one day at noon 
on the terrace, as she gazed at the valley, warmed by a 
glorious sun and colored with the glowing tints of 
autumn, “ my death in your house gives me more hap- 
piness than I have had since I left Brittany.” 

Madame Auffray whispered in her sister Martener’s 
ear : — 

“ How she would have loved ! ” 

In truth, her tones, her looks gave to her words a 
priceless value. 

Monsieur Martener corresponded with Doctor Bian- 
chon, and did nothing of importance without his advice. 
He hoped in the first place to regulate the functions of 


Pierrette. 


215 


nature and to draw away the abscess in the head through 
the ear. The more Pierrette suffered, the more he 
hoped. He gained some slight success at times, and 
that was a great triumph. For several days Pierrette’s 
appetite returned and enabled her to take nourishing 
food for which her illness had given her a repugnance ; 
the color of her skin changed ; but the condition of her 
head was terrible. Monsieur Martener entreated the 
great physician his adviser to come down. Bianchon 
came, stayed two days, and resolved to undertake an 
operation. To spare the feelings of poor Martener he 
went to Paris and brought back with him the celebrated 
Desplein. Thus the operation was performed by the 
greatest surgeon of ancient or modern times ; but that 
terrible diviner said to Martener as he departed with 
Bianchon, his best-beloved pupil : — 

“ Nothing but a miracle can save her. As Horace 
told you, caries of the bone has begun. At her age the 
bones are so tender.’’ 

The operation was performed at the beginning of 
March, 1828. During all that month, distressed by 
Pierrette’s horrible sufferings, Monsieur Martener made 
several journeys to Paris ; there he consulted Desplein 
and Bianchon, and even went so far as to propose to 
them an operation of the nature of lithotrity, which 
consists in passing into the head a hollow instrument 
by the help of which an heroic remedy can be applied 


216 


Pierrette. 


to the diseased bone, to arrest the progress of the 
caries. Even the bold Desplein dared not attempt 
that high-handed surgical measure, which despair alone 
had suggested to Martener. When he returned from 
this journey to Paris he seemed to his friends morose 
and gloomy. He was forced to announce on that fatal 
evening to the Auffrays and Madame Lorrain and to the 
two priests and Brigaut that science could do no more 
for Pierrette, whose recovery was now in God’s hands 
only. The consternation among them was terrible. The 
grandmother made a vow, and requested the priests to say 
a mass ever}' morning at daybreak before Pierrette rose, 
— a mass at which she and Brigaut might be present. 

The trial came on. While the victim lay dying, 
Vinet w'as calumniating her in court. The judge ap- 
proved and accepted the report of the Family Council, 
and Vinet instantly appealed. The newty appointed 
procureur du roi made a requisition which necessitated 
fresh evidence. Rogron and his sister were forced to 
give bail to avoid going to prison. The order for fresh 
evidence included that of Pierrette herself. When 
Monsieur Desfondrilles came to the Auffrays’ to receive 
it, Pierrette was dying, her confessor was at her bedside 
about to administer extreme unction. At that moment 
she entreated all present to forgive her cousins as she 
herself forgave them, sa3'ing with her simple good sense 
that the judgment of these things belonged to God alone, 


Pierrette, 


217 


“ Grandmother/’ she said, leave all you have to 
Brigaut” (Brigaut burst into tears) ; “ and,” continued 
Pierrette, “ give a thousand francs to that kind Ad^le 
who warmed my bed. If Addle had remained with 
my cousins I should not now be d3dng.” 

It was at three o’clock on the Tuesday of Easter 
week, on a beautiful, bright day, that the angel ceased 
to suffer. Her heroic grandmother wished to watch 
all that night with the priests, and to sew with her 
stiff old fingers her darling’s shroud. Towards even- 
ing Brigaut left the Auffrays’ house and went to 
Frappier’s. 

‘‘ I need not ask you, my poor boy, for news,” said 
the cabinet-maker. 

“ Pere Frappier, yes, it is ended for her — but not 
for me.” 

He cast a look upon the different woods piled up 
around the shop, — a look of painful meaning. 

“ I understand you, Brigaut,” said his worthy 
master. “ Take all you want.” And he showed him 
the oaken planks of two-inch thickness. 

“ Don’t help me, Monsieur Frappier,” said the 
Breton, “ I wish to do it alone.” 

He passed the night in planing and fitting Pier- 
rette’s coflfn, and more than once his plane took off 
at a single pass a ribbon of wood which was wet with 
tears. The good man Frappier smoked his pipe and 


218 


Pierrette, 


watched him silently, sa3’ing only, when the foul 
pieces were joined together, — 

“Make the cover to slide; her poor grandmother 
will not hear the nails/’ 

At da^’break Brigaut went out to fetch the lead to 
line the coffin. a strange chance, the sheets of lead 
cost just the sum he had given Pierrette for her journe3’ 
from Nantes to Provins. The brave Breton, who was 
able to resist the awful pain of himself making the 
coffin of his dear one and lining with his memories 
those burial planks, could not bear up against this 
strange reminder. His strength gave wa3^ ; he was 
not able to lift the lead, and the plumber, seeing this, 
came with him, and offered to accompany him to the 
house and solder the last sheet when the body had 
been laid in the coffin. 

The Breton burned the plane and all the tools he 
had used. Then he settled his accounts with Frappier 
and bade him farewell. The heroism with which the 
poor lad personally performed, like the grandmother, 
the last offices for Pierrette made him a sharer in 
the awful scene which crowned the tyranny of the 
Rogrons. 

Brigaut and the plumber reached the house of Mon- 
sieur Auffray just in time to decide by their own main 
force an infamous and shocking judicial question. 
The room where the dead girl lay was full of people, 


Pierrette, 


219 


and presented to the eyes of the two men a singular 
sight. The Rogron emissaries were standing beside 
the body of their victim, to torture her even after death. 
The corpse of the child, solemn in its beauty, lay on 
the cot-bed of her grandmother. Pierrette’s eyes were 
closed, the brown hair smooth upon her brow, the body 
swathed in a coarse cotton sheet. 

Before the bed, on her knees, her hair in disorder, her 
hands stretched out, her face on fire, the old Lorrain 
was crying out, “ No, no, it shall not be done ! ” 

At the foot of the bed stood Monsieur AuflTray and 
the two priests. The tapers were still burning. 

Opposite to the grandmother was the surgeon of the 
hospital, with an assistant, and near him stood Doctor 
N4raud and Vinet. The surgeon wore his dissecting 
apron ; the assistant had opened a case of instruments 
and was handing him a knife. 

This scene was interrupted by the noise of the coflSn 
which Brigaut and the plumber set down upon the 
floor. Then Brigaut, advancing, was horrified at the 
sight of Madame Lorrain, who was now weeping. 

“What is the matter?” he asked, standing beside 
her and grasping the chisel convulsively in his hand. 

“ This,” said the old woman, “ this,, Brigaut: they 
want to open the body of my child and cut into her 
head, and stab her heart after her death as they did 
when she was living.” 


220 


Pierrette, 


“Who?” said Brigaut, in a voice that might have 
deafened the men of law. 

“ The Eogrons.” 

“ In the sacred name of God ! — ” 

“ Stop, Brigaut,” said Monsieur Auffray, seeing the 
lad brandish his chisel. 

“Monsieur Auffra}’,” said Brigaut, as white as his 
dead companion, ‘ ‘ I hear you because you are Mon- 
sieur Auffray, but at this moment I will not listen 
to — ” 

“ The law ! ” said Auffray. 

“ Is there law? is there justice?” cried the Breton. 
“Justice, this is it!” and he advanced to the lawyer 
and the doctors, threatening them with his chisel. 

“My friend,” said the curate, “the law has been 
invoked bj’ the lawyer of Monsieur Rogron, who is 
under the weight of a serious accusation ; and it is im- 
possible for us to refuse him the means of justification. 
The lawj’er of Monsieur Rogron claims that if the poor 
child died of an abscess in her head her former guardian 
cannot be blamed, for it is proved that Pierrette con- 
cealed the effects of the blow which she gave to 
herself — ” 

“ Enough ! ” said Brigaut. 

“ My client — ” began Vinet. 

“ Your client,” cried the Breton, “ shall go to hell 
and I to the scaffold ; for if one of you dares to touch 


Pierrette* 


221 


her whom your client has killed, I will kill him if my 
weapon does its duty.” 

“ This is interference with the law,” said Vinet. “ I 
shall instantly inform the court.” 

The five men left the room. 

“Oh, my son!” cried the old woman, rising from 
her knees and falling on Brigaut’s neck, “ let us bury 
her quick, — they will come back.” 

“If we solder the lead,” said the plumber, “ they 
may not dare to open it.” 

Monsieur Auffray hastened to his brother-in-law, 
Monsieur Lesourd, to try and settle the matter. Vinet 
was not unwilling. Pierrette being dead the suit about 
the guardianship fell, of course, to the ground. All 
the astute lawyer wanted was the effect produced by 
his request. 

At midday Monsieur Desfondrilles made his report 
on the case, and the court rendered a decision that there 
was no ground for further action. 

Rogron dared not go to Pierrette's funeral, at which 
the whole town was present. Vinet wished to force 
him there, but the miserable man was afraid of exciting 
universal horror. 

Brigaut left Provins after watching the filling up of 
the grave where Pierrette lay, and went on foot to 
Paris. He wrote a petition to the Dauphiness asking, 
in the name of his father, that he might enter the Royal 


222 


Pierrette* 


guard, to which he was at once admitted. When the 
expedition to Algiers was undertaken he wrote to her 
again, to obtain employment in it. He was then a ser- 
geant ; Marshal Bourmont gave him an appointment as 
sub-lieutenant in a line regiment. The major’s son 
behaved like a man who wished to die. Death has, 
however, respected Jacques Brigaut up to the present 
time ; although he has distinguished himself in all the 
recent expeditions he has never yet been wounded. 
He is now major in a regiment of infantry. No offi- 
cer is more taciturn or more trust worth}’. Outside of 
his duty he is almost mute ; he walks alone and lives 
mechanically. Every one divines and respects a hidden 
sorrow. He possesses forty-six thousand francs, which 
old Madame Lorrain, who died in Paris in 1829, be- 
queathed to him. 

At the elections of 1830 Vinet was made a deputy. 
The services he rendered the new government have 
now earned him the position of procureur-general. 
His influence is such that he will always remain a 
deputy. Rogron is receiver-general in the same town 
where Vinet fulfils his legal functions ; and by one of 
those curious tricks of chance which do so often occur, 
Monsieur Tiphaine is president of the Royal court in the 
same town, — for the worthy man gave in his adhesion 
to the dynasty of Jul}^ without the slightest hesitation. 
The ex-beautiful Madame Tiphaine lives on excellent 


Pierrette, 


223 


terms with the beautiful Madame Rogron. Vinet is 
hand in glove with Madame Tiphaine. 

As to the imbecile Rogron, he makes such remarks 
as, “ Louis-Philippe will never be really king till he 
is able to make nobles.” 

The speech is evidentl}’^ not his own. His health is 
failing, which allows Madame Rogron to hope she may 
soon marry the General Marquis de Montriveau, peer 
of France, who commands the department, and is 
paying her attentions. Vinet is in his element, seek- 
ing victims ; he never believes in the innocence of an 
accused person. This thoroughbred prosecutor is held 
to be one of the most amiable men on the circuit ; and 
he is no less liked in Paris and in the Chamber ; at 
court he is a charming courtier. 

According to a certain promise made by Vinet, 
General Baron Gouraud, that noble relic of our glo- 
rious armies, married a Mademoiselle Matifat, twenty- 
five years old, daughter of a druggist in the rue des 
Lombards, whose dowry was a hundred thousand 
francs. He commands (as Vinet prophesied) a de- 
partment in the neighborhood of Paris. He was 
named peer of France for his conduct in the riots 
which occurred during the ministry of Casimir Perier. 
Baron Gouraud was one of the generals who took the 
church of Saint-Merry, delighted to rap those rascally 
civilians who had vexed him for years over the 


224 


Pierrette, 


knuckles ; for which service he was rewarded with the 
grand cordon of the Legion of honor. 

None of the personages connected with Pierrette’s 
death ever felt the slightest remorse about it. Mon- 
sieur Desfondrilles is still archaeological, but, in order 
to compass his own election, the procureur general 
Vinet took pains to have him appointed president of 
the Provins court. Sjlvie has a little circle, and 
manages her brother’s propert}^ ; she lends her own 
mone}" at high interest, and does not spend more than 
twelve hundred francs a 3’ear. 

From time to time, when some former son or 
daughter of Provins returns from Paris to settle down, 
you ma^^ hear them ask, as the^^ leave Mademoiselle 
Rogron’s house, “Was n’t there a painful story against 
the Rogrons, — something about a ward ? ” 

“ Mere prejudice,” replies Monsieur Desfondrilles. 
“Certain persons tried to make us believe falsehoods. 
Out of kindness of heart the Rogrons took in a girl 
named Pierrette, quite pretty but with no monej^. Just 
as she was growing up she had an intrigue with a 3’oung 
man, and stood at her window barefooted talking to 
him. The lovers passed notes to each other by a 
string. She took cold in this way and died, having 
no constitution. The Rogrons behaved admirably. 
They made no claim on certain property which was to 
come to her, — the}" gave it all up to the grandmother. 


Pierrette, 


225 


The moral of it was, my good friend, that the devil 
punishes those who try to benefit others/* 

‘ ‘ Ah ! that is quite another story from the one old 
Frappier told me.” 

Frappier consults his wine-cellar more than he does 
his memorj’’,” remarked another of Mademoiselle Ro- 
gron’s visitors. 

“ But that old priest, Monsieur Habert says — 

“ Oh, he ! don’t you know why ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ He wanted to marry his sister to Monsieur Ro- 
gron, the receiver-general.” 

Two men think of Pierrette daily : Doctor Martener 
and Major Brigaut ; they alone know the hideous truth. 

To give that truth its true proportions we must 
transport the scene to the Rome of the middle ages, 
where a sublime young girl, Beatrice Cenci, was 
brought to the scaffold by motives and intrigues that 
were almost identical with those which laid our Pier- 
rette in her grave. Beatrice Cenci had but one de- 
fender, — an artist, a painter. In our day history, and 
living men, on the faith of Guido Reni’s portrait, con- 
demn the Pope, and know that Beatrice was a most 
tender victim of infamous passions and base feuds. 

We must all agree that legality would be a fine thing 
for social scoundrelism if there were no god. 


15 

















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